BRARY 

IIVERSITY  Of 

IAL1FORNIA 


MR.  WELLS  HAS  ALSO  WRITTEN 
The  following  Novels: 

TONO  BUNGAY 
LOVE  AND  MR.  LEWISHAM 
KIPPS  ANN  VERONICA 

THE  HISTORY  OF  MR.  POLLY 
and  THE  NEW  MACHIAVELLI 

Numerous  short  stories  now  publish- 
ed in  a  single  volume  under  the  title. 

THE  COUNTRY  OF  THE  BLIND 

The  following  fantastic  Romances: 

THE  TIME  MACHINE 
THE  WONDERFUL  VISIT 
THE  INVISIBLE  MAN 
THE  WAR  OF  THE  WORLDS 
THE  SEA  LADY 
IN  THE  DAYS  OF  THE  COMET 
THE  SLEEPER  AWAKES 
THE  FOOD  OF  THE  GODS 
THE  WAR  IN  THE  AIR 
THE  FIRST  MEN  IN  THE  MOON 
and  THE  ISLAND  OF  DOCTOR  MOREAU 

And  a  series  of  books  upon  social  and  political 
questions  of  which 

A  MODERN  UTOPIA 

FIRST  AND  LAST  THINGS      (RELIGION) 

NEW  WORLDS  FOR  OLD 

THE  FUTURE  IN  AMERICA 

and  ANTICIPATIONS 
are  the  chief. 


MARRIAGE 


MARRIAGE 


BY 


H.  G.  WELLS 


"And  the  Poor  Dears  haven't  the  shadow  of  a  doubt  they  will  live 
happily  ever  afterwards. "— From  a  Private  Letter. 


NEW  YORK 

DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 
1913 


K4 


COPYRIGHT.  1913 

DUFFIELD  &  COMPANY 


FRATERNALLY 

TO 

ARNOLD  BENNETT 


CONTENTS 

BOOK   THE   FIRST 

MARJORIE  MARRIES 

OHAPTBE  pA(JB 

I.     A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES        ....  3 

II.     THE  Two  PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET  .        .  49 

III.  THE  MAN  WHO  FELL  OUT  OF  THE  SKY  .        .  110 

IV.  CRISIS Igl 

V.     A  TELEPHONE  CALL 183 

BOOK   THE   SECOND 

MARJORIE  MARRIED 

I.     SETTLING  DOWN 217 

II.     THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES        .        .        .        .251 

III.  THE  NEW  PHASE              272 

BOOK    THE    THIRD 

MARJORIE  AT  LONELY  HUT 

I.     SUCCESSES 355 

II.     TRAFFORD  DECIDES  TO  GO         .        .        .        .  388 
III.     THE  PILGRIMAGE  TO  LONELY  HUT         .        .431 

IV.  LONELY  HUT            448 

r    V.     THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA  518 


MARRIAGE 

CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 
A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES 

§1 

AN  extremely  pretty  girl  occupied  a  second-class 
compartment  in  one  of  those  trains  which  percolate 
through  the  rural  tranquillities  of  middle  England 
from  Ganford  in  Oxfordshire  to  Rumbold  Junction 
in  Kent.  She  was  going  to  join  her  family  at  Bury- 
hamstreet  after  a  visit  to  some  Gloucestershire 
friends.  Her  father,  Mr.  Pope,  once  a  leader  in  the 
coach-building  world  and  now  by  retirement  a  gentle- 
man, had  taken  the  Buryhamstreet  vicarage  furnished 
for  two  months  (beginning  on  the  fifteenth  of  July) 
at  his  maximum  summer  rental  of  seven  guineas  a 
week.  His  daughter  was  on  her  way  to  this  retreat. 
At  first  she  had  been  an  animated  traveller,  erect 
and  keenly  regardful  of  every  detail  upon  the  plat- 
forms of  the  stations  at  which  her  conveyance  linger- 
ed, but  the  tedium  of  the  journey  and  the  warmth  of 
the  sunny  afternoon  had  relaxed  her  pose  by  imper- 
ceptible degrees,  and  she  sat  now  comfortably  in  the 
corner,  with  her  neat  toes  upon  the  seat  before  her, 
ready  to  drop  them  primly  at  the  first  sign  of  a 
fellow-traveller.  Her  expression  lapsed  more  and 
more  towards  an  almost  somnolent  reverie.  She 
wished  she  had  not  taken  a  second-class  ticket,  because 
then  she  might  have  afforded  a  cup  of  tea  at  Reading, 


4  MARRIAGE 

and  so  fortified  herself  against  this  insinuating 
indolence. 

She  was  travelling  second  class,  instead  of  third  as 
she  ought  to  have  done,  through  one  of  those  lapses 
so  inevitable  to  young  people  in  her  position.  The 
two  Carmel  boys  and  a  cousin,  two  greyhounds  and  a 
chow  had  come  to  see  her  off;  they  had  made  a  bril- 
liant and  prosperous  group  on  the  platform  and 
extorted  the  manifest  admiration  of  two  youthful 
porters,  and  it  had  been  altogether  too  much  for 
Marjorie  Pope  to  admit  it  was  the  family  custom — 
except  when  her  father's  nerves  had  to  be  considered 
— to  go  third  class.  So  she  had  made  a  hasty  calcu- 
lation— she  knew  her  balance  to  a  penny  because  of 
the  recent  tipping — and  found  it  would  just  run  to 
it.  Fourpence  remained, — and  there  would  be  a  por- 
ter at  Buryhamstreet ! 

Her  mother  had  said:  "You  will  have  Ample." 
Well,  opinions  of  amplitude  vary.  With  numerous 
details  fresh  in  her  mind,  Marjorie  decided  it  would 
be  wiser  to  avoid  financial  discussion  during  her  first 
few  days  at  Buryhamstreet. 

There  was  much  in  Marjorie's  equipment  in  the 
key  of  travelling  second  class  at  the  sacrifice  of  after- 
noon tea.  There  was,  for  example,  a  certain  quiet 
goodness  of  style  about  her  clothes,  though  the  skirt 
betrayed  age,  and  an  entire  absence  of  style  about 
her  luggage,  which  was  all  in  the  compartment  with 
her,  and  which  consisted  of  a  distended  hold-all,  a 
very  good  tennis  racquet  in  a  stretcher,  a  portman- 
teau of  cheap  white  basketwork  held  together  by 
straps,  and  a  very  new,  expensive-looking  and  mere- 
tricious dressing-bag  of  imitation  morocco,  which  had 
been  one  of  her  chief  financial  errors  at  Oxbridge. 
The  collection  was  eloquent  indeed  of  incompatible 
standards. 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES        5 

Marjorie  had  a  chin  that  was  small  in  size  if 
resolute  in  form,  and  a  mouth  that  was  not  noticeably 
soft  and  weak  because  it  was  conspicuously  soft  and 
pretty.  Her  nose  was  delicately  aquiline  and  very 
subtly  and  finely  modelled,  and  she  looked  out  upon 
the  world  with  steady,  grey-blue  eyes  beneath  broad, 
level  brows  that  contradicted  in  a  large  measure  the 
hint  of  weakness  below.  She  had  an  abundance  of 
copper-red  hair,  which  flowed  back  very  prettily  from 
her  broad,  low  forehead  and  over  her  delicate  ears, 
and  she  had  that  warm-tinted  clear  skin  that  goes 
so  well  with  reddish  hair.  She  had  a  very  dainty  neck, 
and  the  long  slender  lines  of  her  body  were  full  of 
the  promise  of  a  riper  beauty.  She  had  the  good 
open  shoulders  of  a  tennis-player  and  a  swimmer. 
Some  day  she  was  to  be  a  tall,  ruddy,  beautiful 
woman.  She  wore  simple  clothes  of  silvery  grey  and 
soft  green,  and  about  her  waist  was  a  belt  of  grey 
leather  in  which  there  now  wilted  two  creamy-petalled 
roses. 

That  was  the  visible  Marjorie.  Somewhere  out  of 
time  and  space  was  an  invisible  Marjorie  who  looked 
out  on  the  world  with  those  steady  eyes,  and  smiled 
or  drooped  with  the  soft  red  lips,  and  dreamt,  and 
wondered,  and  desired. 


What  a  queer  thing  the  invisible  human  being 
would  appear  if,  by  some  discovery  as  yet  inconceiv- 
able, some  spiritual  X-ray  photography,  we  could 
flash  it  into  sight!  Long  ago  I  read  a  book  called 
"Soul  Shapes"  that  was  full  of  ingenious  ideas,  but  I 
doubt  very  much  if  the  thing  so  revealed  would  have 
any  shape,  any  abiding  solid  outline  at  all.  It  is 
something  more  fluctuating  and  discursive  than  that 


6  MARRIAGE 

— at  any  rate,  for  every  one  young  enough  not  to 
have  set  and  hardened.  Things  come  into  it  and 
become  it,  things  drift  out  of  it  and  cease  to  be  it, 
things  turn  upside  down  in  it  and  change  and  colour 
and  dissolve,  and  grow  and  eddy  about  and  blend 
into  each  other.  One  might  figure  it,  I  suppose,  as  a 
preposterous  jumble  animated  by  a  will;  a  flounder- 
ing disconnectedness  through  which  an  old  hump  of 
impulse  rises  and  thrusts  unaccountably;  a  river 
beast  of  purpose  wallowing  in  a  back  eddy  of  mud 
and  weeds  and  floating  objects  and  creatures  drown- 
ed. Now  the  sunshine  of  gladness  makes  it  all  vivid, 
now  it  is  sombre  and  grimly  insistent  under  the  sky 
of  some  darkling  mood,  now  an  emotional  gale  sweeps 
across  it  and  it  is  one  confused  agitation. 

And  surely  these  invisible  selves  of  men  were  never 
so  jumbled,  so  crowded,  complicated,  and  stirred 
about  as  they  are  at  the  present  time.  Once  I  am 
told  they  had  a  sort  of  order,  were  sphered  in  relig- 
ious beliefs,  crystal  clear,  were  arranged  in  a  cos- 
mogony that  fitted  them  as  hand  fits  glove,  were 
separated  by  definite  standards  of  right  and  wrong 
which  presented  life  as  planned  in  all  its  essential 
aspects  from  the  cradle  to  the  grave.  Things  are  so 
no  longer.  That  sphere  is  broken  for  most  of  us; 
even  if  it  is  tied  about  and  mended  again,  it  is  burst 
like  a  seed  case;  things  have  fallen  out  and  things 
have  fallen  in.  ... 

Can  I  convey  in  any  measure  how  it  was  with 
Marjorie? 

What  was  her  religion? 

In  college  forms  and  returns,  and  suchlike  docu- 
ments, she  would  describe  herself  as  "Church  of 
England."  She  had  been  baptized  according  to  the 
usages  of  that  body,  but  she  had  hitherto  evaded 
confirmation  into  it,  and  although  it  is  a  large, 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES        7 

wealthy,  and  powerful  organization  with  many  minds 
to  serve  it,  it  had  never  succeeded  in  getting  into  her 
quick  and  apprehensive  intelligence  any  lucid  and 
persuasive  conception  of  what  it  considered  God  and 
the  universe  were  up  to  with  her.  It  had  failed  to 
catch  her  attention  and  state  itself  to  her.  A  num- 
ber of  humorous  and  other  writers  and  the  general 
trend  of  talk  around  her,  and  perhaps  her  own  shrewd 
little  observation  of  superficial  things,  had,  on  the 
other  hand,  created  a  fairly  definite  belief  in  her  that 
it  wasn't  as  a  matter  of  fact  up  to  very  much  at  all, 
that  what  it  said  wasn't  said  with  that  absolute 
honesty  which  is  a  logical  necessity  in  every  religious 
authority,  and  that  its  hierarchy  had  all  sorts  of 
political  and  social  considerations  confusing  its  treat- 
ment of  her  immortal  soul.  . 

Marjorie  followed  her  father  in  abstaining  from 
church.  He  too  professed  himself  "Church  of  Eng- 
land," but  he  was,  if  we  are  to  set  aside  merely  super- 
ficial classifications,  an  irascible  atheist  with  a  respect 
for  usage  and  Good  Taste,  and  an  abject  fear  of  the 
disapproval  of  other  gentlemen  of  his  class.  For 
the  rest  he  secretly  disliked  clergymen  on  account  of 
the  peculiarity  of  their  collars,  and  a  certain  in- 
fluence they  had  with  women.  When  Marjorie  at  the 
age  of  fourteen  had  displayed  a  hankering  after  ec- 
clesiastical ceremony  and  emotional  religion,  he  had 
declared:  "We  don't  want  any  of  that  nonsense," 
and  sent  her  into  the  country  to  a  farm  where  there 
were  young  calves  and  a  bottle-fed  lamb  and  kittens. 
At  times  her  mother  went  to  church  and  displayed 
considerable  orthodoxy  and  punctilio,  at  times  the 
good  lady  didn't,  and  at  times  she  thought  in  a  broad- 
minded  way  that  there  was  a  Lot  in  Christian  Science, 
and  subjected  herself  to  the  ministrations  of  an 
American  named  Silas  Root.  But  his  ministrations 


8  MARRIAGE 

were  too  expensive  for  continuous  use,  and  so  the  old 
faith  did  not  lose  its  hold  upon  the  family  altogether. 

At  school  Marjorie  had  been  taught  what  I  may 
best  describe  as  Muffled  Christianity — a  temperate 
and  discreet  system  designed  primarily  not  to  irritate 
parents,  in  which  the  painful  symbol  of  the  cruci- 
fixion and  the  riddle  of  what  Salvation  was  to  save 
her  from,  and,  indeed,  the  coarser  aspects  of  religion 
generally,  were  entirely  subordinate  to  images  of 
amiable  perambulations,  and  a  rich  mist  of  finer  feel- 
ings. She  had  been  shielded,  not  only  from  argu- 
ments against  her  religion,  but  from  arguments  for 
it — the  two  things  go  together — and  I  do  not  think 
it  was  particularly  her  fault  if  she  was  now  growing 
up  like  the  great  majority  of  respectable  English 
people,  with  her  religious  faculty  as  it  were,  arti- 
ficially faded,  and  an  acquired  disposition  to  regard 
any  speculation  of  why  she  was,  and  whence  and 
whither,  as  rather  foolish,  not  verv  important,  and 
in  the  very  worst  possible  taste. 

And  so,  the  crystal  globe  being  broken  which  once 
held  souls  together,  you  may  expect  to  find  her  a  little 
dispersed  and  inconsistent  in  her  motives,  and  with 
none  of  that  assurance  a  simpler  age  possessed  of  the 
exact  specification  of  goodness  or  badness,  the  exact 
delimitation  of  right  and  wrong.  Indeed,  she  did  not 
live  in  a  world  of  right  and  wrong,  or  anything  so 
stern;  "horrid"  and  "jolly"  had  replaced  these 
archaic  orientations.  In  a  world  where  a  mercantile 
gentility  has  conquered  passion  and  God  is  neither 
blasphemed  nor  adored,  there  necessarily  arises  this 
generation  of  young  people,  a  litil?  perplexed,  indeed, 
and  with  a  sense  of  something  missive?,  but  feeling 
their  way  inevitably  at  last  to  the  greaC  releasing 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES        9 

question,    "  Then    why    shouldn't    we   have    a    good 
time?  " 

Yet  there  was  something  in  Marjorie,  as  in  most 
human  beings,  that  demanded  some  general  idea,  some 
aim,  to  hold  her  life  together.  A  girl  upon  the  borders 
of  her  set  at  college  was  fond  of  the  phrase  "  living 
for  the  moment,"  and  Marjorie  associated  with  it  the 
speaker's  lax  mouth,  sloe-like  eyes,  soft,  quick-flush- 
ing, boneless  face,  and  a  habit  of  squawking  and 
bouncing  in  a  forced  and  graceless  manner.  Mar- 
jorie's  natural  disposition  was  to  deal  with  life  in  a 
steadier  spirit  than  that.  Yet  all  sorts  of  powers 
and  forces  were  at  work  in  her,  some  exalted,  some 
elvish,  some  vulgar,  some  subtle.  She  felt  keenly  and 
desired  strongly,  and  in  effect  she  came  perhaps 
nearer  the  realization  of  that  offending  phrase  than 
its  original  exponent.  She  had  a  clean  intensity  of 
feeling  that  made  her  delight  in  a  thousand  various 
things,  in  sunlight  and  textures,  and  the  vividly 
quick  acts  of  animals,  in  landscape,  and  the 
beauty  of  other  girls,  in  wit,  and  people's  voices,  and 
good  strong  reasoning,  and  the  desire  and  skill  of  art. 
She  had  a  clear,  rapid  memory  that  made  her  excel 
perhaps  a  little  too  easily  at  school  and  college,  an 
eagerness  of  sympathetic  interest  that  won  people 
very  quickly  and  led  to  disappointments,  and  a  very 
strong  sense  of  the  primary  importance  of  Miss 
Marjorie  Pope  in  the  world.  And  when  any  very 
definite  dream  of  what  she  would  like  to  be  and  what 
she  would  like  to  do,  such  as  being  the  principal  of  a 
ladies'  college,  or  the  first  woman  member  of  Parlia- 
ment, or  the  wife  of  a  barbaric  chief  in  Borneo,  or  a 
great  explorer,  or  the  wife  of  a  millionaire  and  a 
great  social  leader,  or  George  Sand,  or  Saint  Te- 
resa, had  had  possession  of  her  imagination  for  a  few 
weeks,  an  entirely  contrasted  and  equally  attractive 


10  MARRIAGE 

dream  would  presently  arise  beside  it  and  compete 
with  it  and  replace  it.  It  wasn't  so  much  that  she 
turned  against  the  old  one  as  that  she  was  attracted 
by  the  new,  and  she  forgot  the  old  dream  rather  than 
abandoned  it,  simply  because  she  was  only  one  person, 
and  hadn't  therefore  the  possibility  of  realizing  both. 
In  certain  types  Marjorie's  impressionability 
aroused  a  passion  of  proselytism.  People  of  the  most 
diverse  kinds  sought  to  influence  her,  and  they  in- 
variably did  so.  Quite  a  number  of  people,  including 
her  mother  and  the  principal  of  her  college,  believed 
themselves  to  be  the  leading  influence  in  her  life.  And 
this  was  particularly  the  case  with  her  aunt  Plessing- 
ton.  Her  aunt  Plessington  was  devoted  to  social  and 
political  work  of  an  austere  and  aggressive  sort  (in 
which  Mr.  Plessington  participated)  ;  she  was  child- 
less, and  had  a  Movement  of  her  own,  the  Good 
Habits  Movement,  a  progressive  movement  of  the 
utmost  scope  and  benevolence  which  aimed  at  exten- 
sive interferences  with  the  food  and  domestic  intima- 
cies of  the  more  defenceless  lower  classes  by  means 
ultimately  of  legislation,  and  she  had  Marjorie  up 
to  see  her,  took  her  for  long  walks  while  she  influenced 
with  earnestness  and  vigour,  and  at  times  had  an  air 
of  bequeathing  her  mantle,  movement  and  everything, 
quite  definitely  to  her  "  little  Madge."  She  spoke  of 
training  her  niece  to  succeed  her,  and  bought  all  the 
novels  of  Mrs.  Humphry  Ward  for  her  as  they 
appeared,  in  the  hope  of  quickening  in  her  that 
flame  of  politico-social  ambition,  that  insatiable 
craving  for  dinner-parties  with  important  guests, 
which  is  so  distinctive  of  the  more  influential  variety 
of  English  womanhood.  It  was  due  rather  to  her 
own  habit  of  monologue  than  to  any  reserve  on  the 
part  of  Marjorie  that  she  entertained  the  belief  that 
her  niece  was  entirely  acquiescent  in  these  projects. 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      11 

They  went  into  Marjorie's  mind  and  passed.  For 
nearly  a  week,  it  is  true,  she  had  dramatized  herself 
as  the  angel  and  inspiration  of  some  great  modern 
statesman,  but  this  had  been  ousted  by  a  far  more 
insistent  dream,  begotten  by  a  picture  she  had  seen 
in  some  exhibition,  of  a  life  of  careless  savagery, 
whose  central  and  constantly  recurrent  incident  was 
the  riding  of  barebacked  horses  out  of  deep-shadow- 
ed forest  into  a  foamy  sunlit  sea — in  a  costume  that 
would  certainly  have  struck  Aunt  Plessington  as  a 
mistake. 

If  you  could  have  seen  Marjorie  in  her  railway 
compartment,  with  the  sunshine,  sunshine  mottled  by 
the  dirty  window,  tangled  in  her  hair  and  creeping  to 
and  fro  over  her  face  as  the  train  followed  the  curves 
of  the  line,  you  would  certainly  have  agreed  with  me 
that  she  was  pretty,  and  you  might  even  have  thought 
her  beautiful.  But  it  was  necessary  to  fall  in  love 
with  Marjorie  before  you  could  find  her  absolutely 
beautiful.  You  might  have  speculated  just  what 
business  was  going  on  behind  those  drowsily  thought- 
ful eyes.  If  you  are — as  people  say — "  Victorian," 
you  might  even  have  whispered  "Day  Dreams,"  at 
the  sight  of  her.  .  .  . 

She  was  dreaming,  and  in  a  sense  she  was  thinking 
of  beautiful  things.  But  only  mediately.  She  was 
thinking  how  very  much  she  would  enjoy  spending 
freely  and  vigorously,  quite  a  considerable  amount 
of  money, — heaps  of  money. 

You  see,  the  Carmels,  with  whom  she  had  just 
been  staying,  were  shockingly  well  off.  They  had  two 
motor  cars  with  them  in  the  country,  and  the  boys 
had  the  use  of  the  second  one  as  though  it  was  just 
an  old  bicycle.  Marjorie  had  had  a  cheap  white 
dinner-dress,  made  the  year  before  by  a  Chelsea 
French  girl,  a  happy  find  of  her  mother's,  and  it  was 


12  MARRIAGE 

shapely  and  simple  and  not  at  all  bad,  and  she  had 
worn  her  green  beads  and  her  Egyptian  necklace  of 
jade;  but  Kitty  Carmel  and  her  sister  had  had  a  new 
costume  nearly  every  night,  and  pretty  bracelets, 
and  rubies,  big  pearls,  and  woven  gold,  and  half  a 
score  of  delightful  and  precious  things  for  neck  and 
hair.  Everything  in  the  place  was  bright  and  good 
and  abundant,  the  servants  were  easy  and  well-man- 
nered, without  a  trace  of  hurry  or  resentment,  and 
one  didn't  have  to  be  sharp  about  the  eggs  and  things 
at  breakfast  in  the  morning,  or  go  without.  All 
through  the  day,  and  even  when  they  had  gone  to 
bathe  from  the  smart  little  white  and  green  shed  on 
the  upper  lake,  Marjorie  had  been  made  to  feel  the 
insufficiency  of  her  equipment.  Kitty  Carmel,  being 
twenty-one,  possessed  her  own  cheque-book  and  had 
accounts  running  at  half  a  dozen  West-end  shops; 
and  both  sisters  had  furnished  their  own  rooms  ac- 
cording to  their  taste,  with  a  sense  of  obvious  effect 
that  had  set  Marjorie  speculating  just  how  a  room 
might  be  done  by  a  girl  with  a  real  eye  for  colour 
and  a  real  brain  behind  it.  ... 

The  train  slowed  down  for  the  seventeenth  time. 
Marjorie  looked  up  and  read  "Buryhamstreet." 


Her  reverie  vanished,  and  by  a  complex  but  al- 
most instantaneous  movement  she  had  her  basket  off 
the  rack  and  the  carriage  door  open.  She  became 
teeming  anticipations.  There,  advancing  in  a  string, 
were  Daffy,  her  elder  sister,  Theodore,  her  younger 
brother,  and  the  dog  Toupee.  Sydney  and  Rom 
hadn't  come.  Daffy  was  not  copper  red  like  her  sis- 
ter, but  really  quite  coarsely  red-haired;  she  was 
bigger  than  Marjorie,  and  with  irregular  teeth*  in- 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      13 

stead  of  Marjorie's  neat  row;  she  confessed  them  in 
a  broad  simple  smile  of  welcome.  Theodore  was 
hatless,  rustily  fuzzy-headed,  and  now  a  wealth  of 
quasi-humorous  gesture.  The  dog  Toupee  was 
straining  at  a  leash,  and  doing  its  best  in  a  yapping, 
confused  manner,  to  welcome  the  wrong  people  by 
getting  its  lead  round  their  legs. 

"Toupee!"  cried  Marjorie,  waving  the  basket. 
"Toupee!" 

They  all  called  it  Toupee  because  it  was  like  one, 
but  the  name  was  forbidden  in  her  father's  hearing. 
Her  father  had  decided  that  the  proper  name  for  a 
family  dog  in  England  is  Towser,  and  did  his  utmost 
to  suppress  a  sobriquet  that  was  at  once  unprece- 
dented and  not  in  the  best  possible  taste.  Which  was 
why  the  whole  family,  with  the  exception  of  Mrs. 
Pope,  of  course,  stuck  to  Toupee.  .  .  . 

Marjorie  flashed  a  second's  contrast  with  the 
Carmel  splendours. 

"  Hullo,  old  Daffy.  What's  it  like?"  she  asked, 
handing  out  the  basket  as  her  sister  came  up. 

"  It's  a  lark,"  said  Daffy.  "  Where's  the  dress- 
ing-bag?" 

"  Thoddy,"  said  Marjorie,  following  up  the 
dressing-bag  with  the  hold-all.  "  Lend  a  hand." 

"  Stow  it,  Toupee,"  said  Theodore,  and  caught 
the  hold-all  in  time. 

In  another  moment  Marjorie  was  out  of  the 
train,  had  done  the  swift  kissing  proper  to  the  occa- 
sion, and  rolled  a  hand  over  Toupee's  head — Toupee, 
who,  after  a  passionate  lunge  at  a  particularly 
savoury  drover  from  the  next  compartment,  was  now 
frantically  trying  to  indicate  that  Marjorie  was  the 
one  human  being  he  had  ever  cared  for.  Brother 
and  sister  were  both  sketching  out  the  state  of  affairs 
at  Buryhamstreet  Vicarage  in  rapid  competitive 


14,  MARRIAGE 

jerks,  each  eager  to  tell  things  first — and  the  whole 
party  moved  confusedly  towards  the  station  exit. 
Things  pelted  into  Marjorie's  mind. 

"  We've  got  an  old  donkey-cart.  I  thought  we 
shouldn't  get  here — ever.  .  .  .  Madge,  we  can  go 
up  the  church  tower  whenever  we  like,  only  old  Daffy 
won't  let  me  shin  up  the  flagstaff.  It's  perfectly 
safe — you  couldn't  fall  off  if  you  tried.  .  .  .  Had 
positively  to  get  out  at  the  level  crossing  and  pull 
him  over.  .  .  .  There's  a  sort  of  moat  in  the  gar- 
den. .  .  .  You  never  saw  such  furniture,  Madge ! 
And  the  study!  It's  hung  with  texts,  and  stuffed 
with  books  about  the  Scarlet  Woman.  .  .  .  Piano's 
rather  good,  it's  a  Broadwood.  .  .  .  The  Dad's 
got  a  war  on  about  the  tennis  net.  Oh,  frightful! 
You'll  see.  It  won't  keep  up.  He's  had  a  letter 
kept  waiting  by  the  Times  for  a  fortnight,  and  it's  a 
terror  at  breakfast.  Says  the  motor  people  have 
used  influence  to  silence  him.  Says  that's  a  game  two 
can  play  at.  ...  Old  Sid  got  herself  upset  stuff- 
ing windfalls.  Rather  a  sell  for  old  Sid,  considering 
how  refined  she's  getting.  .  .  .  ' 

There  was  a  brief  lull  as  the  party  got  into  the 
waiting  governess  cart.  Toupee,  after  a  preliminary 
refusal  to  enter,  made  a  determined  attempt  on  the 
best  seat,  from  which  he  would  be  able  to  bark  in  a 
persistent,  official  manner  at  anything  that  passed. 
That  suppressed,  and  Theodore's  proposal  to  drive 
refused,  they  were  able  to  start,  and  attention  was 
concentrated  upon  Daffy's  negotiation  of  the  station 
approach.  Marjorie  turned  on  her  brother  with  a 
smile  of  warm  affection. 

"  How  are  you,  old  Theodore?" 

"  I'm  all  right,  old  Madge." 

"Mummy?" 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES       15 

"  Every  one's  all  right,"  said'  Theodore ;  "  if  it 
wa§n't  for  that  damned  infernal  net " 

"  Ssssh !"  cried  both  sisters  together. 

"  He  says  it,"  said  Theodore. 

Both  sisters  conveyed  a  grave  and  relentless  dis- 
approval. 

"Pretty  bit  of  road,"  said  Marjorie.  "I  like 
that  little  house  at  the  corner." 

A  pause  and  the  eyes  of  the  sisters  met. 

"  He's  here,"  said  Daffy. 

Marjorie  affected  ignorance. 

"Who's  here?" 

"  11  vostro  senior  Miraculoso." 

"  Just  as  though  a  fellow  couldn't  understand 
your  kiddy  little  Italian,"  said  Theodore,  pulling 
Toupee's  ear. 

"  Oh  well,  I  thought  he  might  be,"  said  Marjorie, 
regardless  of  her  brother. 

"  Oh !"  said  Daffy.    "  I  didn't  know " 

Both  sisters  looked  at  each  other,  and  then  both 
glanced  at  Theodore.  He  met  Marjorie's  eyes  with 
a  grimace  of  profound  solemnity. 

"  Little  brothers,"  he  said,  "  shouldn't  know. 
Just  as  though  they  didn't!  Rot!  But  let's  change 
the  subject,  my  dears,  all  the  same.  Lemme  see. 
There  are  a  new  sort  of  flea  on  Toupee,  Madge,  that 
he  gets  from  the  hens." 

"  Is  a  new  sort,"  corrected  Daffy.  "  He's  hor- 
rider  than  ever,  Madge.  He  leaves  his  soap  in  soak 
now  to  make  us  think  he  has  used  it.  This  is  the 
village  High  Street.  Isn't  it  jolly?" 

"  Corners  don't  bite  people,"  said  Theodore,  with 
a  critical  eye  to  the  driving. 

Marjorie  surveyed  the  High  Street,  while  Daffy 
devoted  a  few  moments  to  Theodore. 

The  particular   success    of   the   village   was   its 


16  MARRIAGE 

brace  of  chestnut  trees  which,  with  that  noble  disre- 
gard of  triteness  which  is  one  of  the  charms  of  vil- 
lages the  whole  world  over,  shadowed  the  village 
smithy.  On  either  side  of  the  roadway  between  it 
and  the  paths  was  a  careless  width  of  vivid  grass 
protected  by  white  posts,  which  gave  way  to  admit  a 
generous  access  on  either  hand  to  a  jolly  public 
house,  leering  over  red  blinds,  and  swinging  a  painted 
sign  against  its  competitor.  Several  of  the  cottages 
had  real  thatch  and  most  had  porches;  they  had 
creepers  nailed  to  their  faces,  and  their  gardens, 
crowded  now  with  flowers,  marigolds,  begonias,  snap- 
dragon, delphiniums,  white  foxgloves,  and  monks- 
hood,  seemed  almost  too  good  to  be  true.  The 
doctor's  house  was  pleasantly  Georgian,  and  the 
village  shop,  which  was  also  a  post  and  telegraph 
office,  lay  back  with  a  slight  air  of  repletion,  keeping 
its  bulging  double  shop-windows  wide  open  in  a  mani- 
fest attempt  not  to  fall  asleep.  Two  score  of  shock- 
headed  boys  and  pinafored  girls  were  drilling  upon  a 
bald  space  of  ground  before  the  village  school,  and 
near  by,  the  national  emotion  at  the  ever-memorable 
Diamond  Jubilee  of  Queen  Victoria  had  evoked  an 
artistic  drinking-fountain  of  grey  stone.  Beyond 
the  subsequent  green — there  were  the  correctest  geese 
thereon — the  village  narrowed  almost  to  a  normal 
road  again,  and  then,  recalling  itself  with  a  start, 
lifted  a  little  to  the  churchyard  wall  about  the  grey 
and  ample  church.  "  It's  just  like  all  the  villages 
that  ever  were,"  said  Marjorie,  and  gave  a  cry  of 
delight  when  Daffy,  pointing  to  the  white  gate  be- 
tween two  elm  trees  that  led  to  the  vicarage,  remark- 
ed: "That's  us." 

In  confirmation  of  which  statement,  Sydney  and 
Rom,  the  two  sisters  next  in  succession  to  Marjorie, 
and  with  a  strong  tendency  to  be  twins  in  spite  of  the 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      17 

year  between  them,  appeared  in  a  state  of  vociferous 
incivility  opening  the  way  for  the  donkey-carriage. 
Sydney  was  Sydney,  and  Rom  was  just  short  for 
Romola — one  of  her  mother's  favourite  heroines  in 
fiction. 

"  Old  Madge,"  they  said ;  and  then  throwing 
respect  to  the  winds,  "  Old  Gargoo !"  which  was  Mar- 
jorie's  forbidden  nickname,  and  short  for  gargoyle 
(though  surely  only  Victorian  Gothic  ever  produced 
a  gargoyle  that  had  the  remotest  right  to  be  associ- 
ated with  the  neat  brightness  of  Marjorie's  face). 

She  overlooked  the  offence,  and  the  pseudo-twins 
boarded  the  cart  from  behind,  whereupon  the  already 
overburthened  donkey,  being  old  and  in  a  manner 
wise,  quickened  his  pace  for  the  house  to  get  the 
whole  thing  over. 

"  It's  really  an  avenue,"  said  Daffy ;  but  Mar- 
jorie,  with  her  mind  strung  up  to  the  Carmel  stand- 
ards, couldn't  agree.  It  was  like  calling  a  row  of 
boy-scouts  Potsdam  grenadiers.  The  trees  were  at 
irregular  distances,  of  various  ages,  and  mostly  on 
one  side.  Still  it  was  a  shady,  pleasant  approach. 

And  the  vicarage  was  truly  very  interesting  and 
amusing.  To  these  Londoners  accustomed  to  live  in 
a  state  of  compression,  elbows  practically  touching, 
in  a  tall,  narrow  fore-and-aft  stucco  house,  all  win- 
dow and  staircase,  in  a  despondent  Brompton  square, 
there  was  an  effect  of  maundering  freedom  about  the 
place,  of  enlargement  almost  to  the  pitch  of  adven- 
ture and  sunlight  to  the  pitch  of  intoxication.  The 
house  itself  was  long  and  low,  as  if  a  London  house 
holidaying  in  the  country  had  flung  itself  asprawl ;  it 
had  two  disconnected  and  roomy  staircases,  and  when 
it  had  exhausted  itself  completely  as  a  house,  it 
turned  to  the  right  and  began  again  as  rambling, 
empty  stables,  coach  house,  cart  sheds,  men's  bed- 


18  MARRIAGE 

roomi  up  ladders,  and  outhouses  of  the  most  various 
kinds.  On  one  hand  was  a  neglected  orchard,  in  the 
front  of  the  house  was  a  bald,  worried-looking  lawn 
area  capable  of  simultaneous  tennis  and  croquet,  and 
at  the  other  side  a  copious  and  confused  vegetable 
and  flower  garden  full  of  roses,  honesty,  hollyhocks, 
and  suchlike  herbaceous  biennials  and  perennials, 
lapsed  at  last  into  shrubbery,  where  a  sickle-shaped, 
weedy  lagoon  of  uncertain  aims,  which  had  evidently, 
as  a  rustic  bridge  and  a  weeping  willow  confessed, 
aspired  to  be  an  "  ornamental  water,"  declined  at 
last  to  ducks.  And  there  was  access  to  the  church, 
and  the  key  of  the  church  tower,  and  one  went  across 
the  corner  of  the  lawn,  and  by  a  little  iron  gate  into 
the  churchyard  to  decipher  inscriptions,  as  if  the 
tombs  of  all  Buryhamstreet  were  no  more  than  a  part 
of  the  accommodation  relinquished  by  the  vicar's 
household. 

Marjorie  was  hurried  over  the  chief  points  of  all 
this  at  a  breakneck  pace  by  Sydney  and  Rom,  and 
when  Sydney  was  called  away  to  the  horrors  of  prac- 
tice— for  Sydney  in  spite  of  considerable  reluctance 
was  destined  by  her  father  to  be  "  the  musical  one  " 
— Rom  developed  a  copious  affection,  due  apparently 
to  some  occult  aesthetic  influence  in  Marjorie's  sil- 
very-grey and  green,  and  led  her  into  the  unlocked 
vestry,  and  there  prayed  in  a  whisper  that  she  might 
be  given  "  one  good  hug,  just  one  " — and  so  they 
came  out  with  their  arms  about  each  other  very 
affectionately  to  visit  the  lagoon  again.  And  then 
Rom  remembered  that  Marjorie  hadn't  seen  either 
the  walnut-tree  in  the  orchard,  or  the  hen  with  nine 
chicks.  .  .  . 

Somewhere  among  all  these  interests  came  tea  and 
Mrs.  Pope. 

Mrs.   Pope  kissed  her  daughter  with  an  air  of 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      19 

having  really  wanted  to  kiss  her  half  an  hour  ago, 
but  of  having  been  distracted  since.  She  was  a  fine- 
featured,  anxious-looking  little  woman,  with  a  close 
resemblance  to  all  her  children,  in  spite  of  the  fact 
that  they  were  markedly  dissimilar  one  to  the  other, 
except  only  that  they  took  their  ruddy  colourings 
from  their  father.  She  was  dressed  in  a  neat  blue 
dress  that  had  perhaps  been  hurriedly  chosen,  and 
her  method  of  doing  her  hair  was  a  manifest  com- 
promise between  duty  and  pleasure.  She  embarked 
at  once  upon  an  exposition  of  the  bedroom  arrange- 
ments, which  evidently  involved  difficult  issues.  Mar- 
jorie  was  to  share  a  room  with  Daffy — that  was  the 
gist  of  it — as  the  only  other  available  apartment, 
originally  promised  to  Marjorie,  had  been  secured 
by  Mr.  Pope  for  what  he  called  his  "  matutinal  ablu- 
tions, videlicet  tub." 

"  Then,  when  your  Aunt  Plessington  comes,  you 
won't  have  to  move,"  said  Mrs.  Pope  with  an  air  of 
a  special  concession.  "  Your  father's  looking  for- 
ward to  seeing  you,  but  he  mustn't  be  disturbed  just 
yet.  He's  in  the  vicar's  study.  He's  had  his  tea 
in  there.  He's  writing  a  letter  to  the  Times  answer- 
ing something  they  said  in  a  leader,  and  also  a 
private  note  calling  attention  to  their  delay  in  print- 
ing his  previous  communication,  and  he  wants  to  be 
delicately  ironical  without  being  in  any  way  offen- 
sive. He  wants  to  hint  without  actually  threatening 
that  very  probably  he  will  go  over  to  the  Spectator 
altogether  if  they  do  not  become  more  attentive. 
The  Times  used  to  print  his  letters  punctually,  but 
latterly  these  automobile  people  seem  to  have  got 
hold  of  it.  .  .  .  He  has  the  window  on  the  lawn 
open,  so  that  I  think,  perhaps,  we'd  better  not  stay 
out  here — for  fear  our  voices  might  disturb  him." 


20  MARRIAGE 

"  Better  get  right  round  the  other  side  of  the 
church,"  said  Daffy. 

"  He'd  hear  far  less  of  us  if  we  went  indoors," 
said  Mrs.  Pope. 


The  vicarage  seemed  tight  packed  with  human 
interest  for  Marjorie  and  her  mother  and  sisters. 
Going  over  houses  is  one  of  the  amusements  proper  to 
her  sex,  and  she  and  all  three  sisters  and  her  mother, 
as  soon  as  they  had  finished  an  inaudible  tea,  went  to 
see  the  bedroom  she  was  to  share  with  Daffy,  and  then 
examined,  carefully  and  in  order,  the  furniture  and 
decoration  of  the  other  bedrooms,  went  through  the 
rooms  downstairs,  always  excepting  and  avoiding 
very  carefully  and  closing  as  many  doors  as  possible 
on,  and  hushing  their  voices  whenever  they  approach- 
ed, the  study  in  which  her  father  was  being  delicately 
ironical  without  being  offensive  to  the  Times.  None 
of  them  had  seen  any  of  the  vicarage  people  at  all  — 
Mr.  Pope  had  come  on  a  bicycle  and  managed  all  the 
negotiations  —  and  it  was  curious  to  speculate  about 
the  individuals  whose  personalities  pervaded  the 
worn  and  faded  furnishings  of  the  place. 

The  Popes'  keen-eyed  inspection  came  at  times,  I 
think,  dangerously  near  prying.  The  ideals  of  decor- 
ation and  interests  of  the  vanished  family  were  so 
absolutely  dissimilar  to  the  London  standards  as  to 
arouse  a  sort  of  astonished  wonder  in  their  minds. 
Some  of  the  things  they  decided  were  perfectly  hid- 
eous, some  quaint,  some  were  simply  and  weakly  silly. 
Everything  was  different  from  Hartstone  Square. 
Daffy  was  perhaps  more  inclined  to  contempt,  and 
Mrs.  Pope  to  refined  amusement  and  witty  apprecia- 
tion than  Marjorie.  Marjorie  felt  there  was  some- 
thing in  these  people  that  she  didn't  begin  to 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      21 

understand,  she  needed  some  missing  clue  that  would 
unlock  the  secret  of  their  confused  peculiarity.  She 
was  one  of  those  people  who  have  an  almost  instinc- 
tive turn  for  decoration  in  costume  and  furniture ; 
she  had  already  had  a  taste  of  how  to  do  things  in 
arranging  her  rooms  at  Bennett  College,  Oxbridge, 
where  also  she  was  in  great  demand  among  the  richer 
girls  as  an  adviser.  She  knew  what  it  was  to  try 
and  fail  as  well  as  to  try  and  succeed,  and  these 
people,  she  felt,  hadn't  tried  for  anything  she  com- 
prehended. She  couldn't  quite  see  why  it  was  that 
there  was  at  the  same  time  an  attempt  at  ornament 
and  a  disregard  of  beauty,  she  couldn't  quite  do  as 
her  mother  did  and  dismiss  it  as  an  absurdity  and 
have  done  with  it.  She  couldn't  understand,  too, 
why  everything  should  be  as  if  it  were  faded  and 
weakened  from  something  originally  bright  and  clear. 
All  the  rooms  were  thick  with  queer  little  objects 
that  indicated  a  quite  beaver-like  industry  in  the  pro- 
duction of  "work."  There  were  embroidered  covers 
for  nearly  every  article  on  the  wash-hand-stand,  and 
mats  of  wool  and  crochet  wherever  anything,  stood  on 
anything ;  there  were  "  tidies  "  everywhere,  and  odd 
little  brackets  covered  with  gilded  and  varnished  fir 
cones  and  bearing  framed  photographs  and  little  jars 
and  all  sorts  of  colourless,  dusty  little  objects,  and 
everywhere  on  the  walls  tacks  sustained  crossed  fans 
with  badly  painted  flowers  or  transfer  pictures. 
There  was  a  jar  on  the  bedroom  mantel  covered  with 
varnished  postage  stamps  and  containing  grey-hair- 
ed dried  grasses.  There  seemed  to  be  a  moral  ele- 
ment in  all  this,  for  in  the  room  Sydney  shared  with 
Rom  there  was  a  decorative  piece  of  lettering  which 
declared  that — 

u  Something  attempted,  something  done, 
Has  earned  a  night's  repose" 


22  MARRIAGE 

There  were  a  great  number  of  texts  that  set  Mar- 
jorie's  mind  stirring  dimly  with  intimations  of  a 
missed  significance.  Over  her  own  bed,  within  the 
lattice  of  an  Oxford  frame,  was  the  photograph  of  a 
picture  of  an  extremely  composed  young  woman  in  a 
trailing  robe,  clinging  to  the  Rock  of  Ages  in  the 
midst  of  histrionically  aggressive  waves,  and  she  had 
a  feeling,  rather  than  a  thought,  that  perhaps  for 
all  the  oddity  of  the  presentation  it  did  convey  some- 
thing acutely  desirable,  that  she  herself  had  had 
moods  when  she  would  have  found  something  very 
comforting  in  just  such  an  impassioned  grip.  And 
on  a  framed1,  floriferous  card,  these  incomprehensible 
words : 


THY  GRACE  is  SUFFICIENT  FOE  ME. 


seemed  to  be  saying  something  to  her  tantalizingly 
just  outside  her  range  of  apprehension. 

Did  all  these  things  light  up  somehow  to  those 
dispossessed  people — from  some  angle  she  didn't 
attain?  Were  they  living  and  moving  realities  when 
those  others  were  at  home  again? 

The  drawing-room  had  no  texts ;  it  was  altogeth- 
er more  pretentious  and  less  haunted  by  the  faint  and 
faded  flavour  of  religion  that  pervaded  the  bedrooms. 
It  had,  however,  evidences  of  travel  in  Switzerland 
and  the  Mediterranean.  There  was  a  piano  in  black 
and  gold,  a  little  out  of  tune,  and  surmounted  by  a 
Benares  brass  jar,  enveloping  a  scarlet  geranium  in 
a  pot.  There  was  a  Japanese  screen  of  gold  wrought 
upon  black,  that  screened  nothing.  There  was  a 
framed  chromo-lithograph  of  Jerusalem  hot  in  the 
•unset,  and  another  of  Jerusalem  cold  under  a  iub- 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      23 

tropical  moon,  and  there  were  gourds,  roses  of  Jeri- 
cho, sandalwood  rosaries  and  kindred  trash  from 
the  Holy  Land  in  no  little  profusion  upon  a  what-not. 
Such  books  as  the  room  had  contained  had  been  ar- 
ranged as  symmetrically  as  possible  about  a  large, 
pink-shaded  lamp  upon  the  claret-coloured  cloth  of 
a  round  table,  and  were  to  be  replaced,  Mrs.  Pope 
said,  at  their  departure.  At  present  they  were  piled 
on  a  side-table.  The  girls  had  been  through  them 
all,  and  were  ready  with  the  choicer  morsels  for  Mar- 
jorie's  amusement.  There  was  "  Black  Beauty,"  the 
sympathetic  story  of  a  soundly  Anglican  horse,  and 
a  large  Bible  extra-illustrated  with  photographs  of 
every  well-known  scriptural  picture  from  Michael 
Angelo  to  Dore,  and  a  book  of  injunctions  to  young 
ladies  upon  their  behaviour  and  deportment  that 
Rom  and  Sydney  found  particularly  entertaining. 
Marjorie  discovered  that  Sydney  had  picked  up  a 
new  favourite  phrase.  "  I'm  afraid  we're  all  dread- 
fully cynical,"  said  Sydney,  several  times. 

A  more  advanced  note  was  struck  by  a  copy  of 
"  Aurora  Leigh,"  richly  underlined  in  pencil,  but 
with  exclamation  marks  at  some  of  the  bolder  pas- 
sages. .  .  . 

And  presently,  still  avoiding  the  open  study  win- 
dow very  elaborately,  this  little  group  of  twentieth 
century  people  went  again  into  the  church — the 
church  whose  foundations  were  laid  in  A.D.  912— 
foundations  of  rubble  and  cement  that  included  flat 
Roman  bricks  from  a  still  remoter  basilica.  Their 
voices  dropped  instinctively,  as  they  came  into  its 
shaded  quiet  from  the  exterior  sunshine.  Marjorie 
went  a  little  apart  and  sat  in  a  pew  that  gave  her  a 
glimpse  of  the  one  good  stained-glass  window.  Rom 
followed  her,  and  perceiving  her  mood  to  be  restful, 
sat  a  yard  away.  Syd  began  a  whispered  dispute 


24  MARRIAGE 

with  her  mother  whether  it  wasn't  possible  to  try 
the  organ,  and  whether  Theodore  might  not  be  bribed 
to  blow.  Daffy  discovered  relics  of  a  lepers'  squint 
and  a  holy-water  stoup,  and  then  went  to  scrutinize 
the  lettering  of  the  ten  commandments  of  the  Mosaic 
law  that  shone  black  and  red  on  gold  on  either  side 
of  the  I.H.S.  monogram  behind  the  white-clothed 
communion  table  that  had  once  been  the  altar.  Upon 
a  notice  board  hung  about  the  waist  of  the  portly 
pulpit  were  the  numbers  of  hymns  that  had  been 
sung  three  days  ago.  The  sound  Protestantism  of 
the  vicar  had  banished  superfluous  crosses  from  the 
building ;  the  Bible  reposed  upon  the  wings  of  a  great 
brass  eagle;  shining  blue  and  crimson  in  the  window, 
Saint  Christopher  carried  his  Lord.  What  a  har- 
monized synthesis  of  conflicts  a,  country  church  pre- 
sents! What  invisible  mysteries  of  filiation  spread 
between  these  ancient  ornaments  and  symbols  and 
the  new  young  minds  from  the  whirlpool  of  the  town 
that  looked  upon  them  now  with  such  bright,  keen 
eyes,  wondering  a  little,  feeling  a  little,  missing  so 
much? 

It  was  all  so  very  cool  and  quiet  now — with  some- 
thing of  the  immobile  serenity  of  death. 

§5 

When  Mr.  Pope  had  finished  his  letter  to  the 
Times,  he  got  out  of  the  window  of  the  study,  tread- 
ing on  a  flower-bed  as  he  did  so — he  was  the  sort  of 
man  who  treads  on  flower-beds — partly  with  the  pur- 
pose of  reading  his  composition  aloud  to  as  many 
members  of  his  family  as  he  could  assemble  for  the 
purpose,  and  so  giving  them  a  chance  of  appreciat- 
ing the  nuances  of  his  irony  more  fully  than  if  they 
saw  it  just  in  cold  print  without  the  advantage  of  his 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      25 

intonation,  and  partly  with  the  belated  idea  of  wel- 
coming Marjorie.  The  lawn  presented  a  rather  dis- 
couraging desolation.  Then  he  became  aware  that 
the  church  tower  frothed  with  his  daughters.  In 
view  of  his  need  of  an  audience,  he  decided  after  a 
brief  doubt  that  their  presence  there  was  unobjec- 
tionable, and  waved  his  MS.  amiably.  Marjorie 
flapped  a  handkerchief  in  reply.  .  .  . 

The  subsequent  hour  was  just  the  sort  of  hour 
that  gave  Mr.  Pope  an  almost  meteorological  im- 
portance to  his  family.  He  began  with  an  amiability 
that  had  no  fault,  except,  perhaps,  that  it  was  a 
little  forced  after  the  epistolary  strain  in  the  study, 
and  his  welcome  to  Marjorie  was  more  than  cordial. 
"  Well,  little  Madge-cat !"  he  said,  giving  her  an 
affectionate  but  sound  and  heavy  thump  on  the  left 
ehoulder-blade,  "  got  a  kiss  for  the  old  daddy  ?" 

Marjorie  submitted  a  cheek. 

"  That's  right,"  said  Mr.  Pope;  "  and  now  I  just 
want  you  all  to  advise  me " 

He  led  the  way  to  a  group  of  wicker  garden 
chairs.  "You're  coming,  mummy?"  he  said,  and 
seated  himself  comfortably  and  drew  out  a  spectacle 
case,  while  his  family  grouped  itself  dutifully.  It 
made  a  charming  little  picture  of  a  Man  and  his 
Womankind.  "  I  don't  often  flatter  myself,"  he  said, 
"but  this  time  I  think  I've  been  neat — neat's  the 
word  for  it." 

He  cleared  his  throat,  put  on  his  spectacles,  and 
emitted  a  long,  flat  preliminary  note,  rather  like  the 
sound  of  a  child's  trumpet.  "  Er — fi  Dear  Sir !'  " 

"  Rom,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  "  don't  creak  your 
chair." 

"  It's  Daffy,  mother,"  said  Rom. 

"  Oh,  Rom!"  said  Daffy. 


26  MARRIAGE 

Mr.  Pope  paused,  and  looked  with  a  warning  eye 
over  his  left  spectacle-glass  at  Rom. 

"  Don't  creak  your  chair,  Rom,"  he  said,  "  when 
your  mother  tells  you." 

"  I  was  not  creaking  my  chair,"  said  Rom. 

"  I  heard  it,"  said  Mr.  Pope,  suavely. 

"  It  was  Daffy." 

"  Your  mother  does  not  think  so,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"  Oh,  all  right !  I'll  sit  on  the  ground,"  said  Rom, 
crimson  to  the  roots  of  her  hair. 

"  Me  too,"  said  Daffy.     "  I'd  rather." 

Mr.  Pope  watched  the  transfer  gravely.  Then  he 
readjusted  his  glasses,  cleared  his  throat  again, 
trumpeted,  and  began.  "  Er — '  Dear  Sir,' ' 

"  Oughtn't  it  to  be  simply  6  Sir,'  father,  for  an 
editor?"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Perhaps  I  didn't  explain,  Marjorie,"  said  her 
father,  with  the  calm  of  great  self-restraint,  and 
dabbing  his  left  hand  on  the  manuscript  in  his  right, 
"  that  this  is  a  private  letter — a  private  letter." 

66 1  didn't  understand,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  It  would  have  been  evident  as  I  went  on,"  said 
Mr.  Pope,  and  prepared  to  read  again. 

This  time  he  was  allowed  to  proceed,  but  the  inter- 
ruptions had  ruffled  him,  and  the  gentle  stresses  that 
should  have  lifted  the  subtleties  of  his  irony  into  pro- 
minence missed  the  words,  and  he  had  to  go  back  and 
do  his  sentences  again.  Then  Rom  suddenly,  horribly, 
uncontrollably,  was  seized  with  hiccups.  At  the 
second  hiccup  Mr.  Pope  paused,  and  looked  very 
hard  at  his  daughter  with  magnified  eyes ;  as  he  was 
about  to  resume,  the  third  burst  its  way  through  the 
unhappy  child's  utmost  effort. 

Mr.  Pope  rose  with  an  awful  resignation.  "  That's 
enough,"  he  said.  He  regarded  the  pseudo-twin  vin- 
dictively. "You  haven't  the  self-control  of  a  chi!4 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      27 

of  six,"  he  said.  Then  very  touchingly  to  Mrs. 
Pope :  "  Mummy,  shall  we  try  a  game  of  tennis  with 
the  New  Generation?" 

"  Can't  you  read  it  after  supper?"  asked  Mrs. 
Pope. 

"  It  must  go  by  the  eight  o'clock  post,"  said  Mr. 
Pope,  putting  the  masterpiece  into  his  breast  pocket, 
the  little  masterpiece  that  would  now  perhaps  never 
be  read  aloud  to  any  human  being.  "  Daffy,  dear,  do 
you  mind  going  in  for  the  racquets  and  balls?" 

The  social  atmosphere  was  now  sultry,  and  over- 
cast, and  Mr.  Pope's  decision  to  spend  the  interval 
before  Daffy  returned  in  seeing  whether  he  couldn't 
do  something  to  the  net,  which  was  certainly  very  un- 
satisfactory, did  not  improve  matters.  Then,  un- 
happily, Marjorie,  who  had  got  rather  keen  upon 
tennis  at  the  Carmels',  claimed  her  father's  first  two 
services  as  faults,  contrary  to  the  etiquette  of  the 
family.  It  happened  that  Mr.  Pope  had  a  really 
very  good,  hard,  difficult,  smart-looking  serve,  whose 
only  defect  was  that  it  always  went  either  too  far 
or  else  into  the  net,  and  so  a  feeling  had  been  fostered 
and  established  by  his  wife  that,  on  the  whole,  it  was 
advisable  to  regard  the  former  variety  as  a  legiti- 
mate extension  of  a  father's  authority.  Naturally, 
therefore,  Mr.  Pope  was  nettled  at  Marjorie's  ruling, 
and  his  irritation  increased  when  his  next  two  services 
to  Daffy  perished  in  the  net.  ("Damn  that  net! 
Puts  one's  eye  out.")  Then  Marjorie  gave  him  an 
unexpected  soft  return  which  he  somehow  muffed, 
and  then  Daffy  just  dropped  a  return  over  the  top 
of  the  net.  (Love-game.)  It  was  then  Marjorie's 
turn  to  serve,  which  she  did'  with  a  new  twist  acquired 
from  the  eldest  Carmel  boy  that  struck  Mr.  Pope  as 
un-English.  "  Go  on,"  he  said  concisely.  "  Fifteen 
love." 


28  MARRIAGE 

She  was  gentle  with  her  mother  and  they  got  their 
first  rally,  and  when  it  was  over  Mr.  Pope  had  to 
explain  to  Marjorie  that  if  she  returned  right  up  into 
his  corner  of  the  court  he  would  have  to  run  back- 
wards very  fast  and  might  fall  over  down  the  silly 
slope  at  that  end.  She  would  have  to  consider  him 
and  the  court.  One  didn't  get  everything  out  of  a 
game  by  playing  merely  to  win.  She  said  "  All  right, 
Daddy,"  rather  off-handedly,  and  immediately  served 
to  him  again,  and  he,  taken  a  little  unawares,  hit  the 
ball  with  the  edge  of  his  racquet  and  sent  it  out,  and 
then  he  changed  racquets  with  Daffy — it  seemed  he 
had  known  all  along  she  had  taken  his,  but  he  had 
preferred  to  say  nothing — uttered  a  word  of  advice 
to  his  wife  just  on  her  stroke,  and  she,  failing  to 
grasp  his  intention  as  quickly  as  she  ought  to  have 
done,  left  the  score  forty-fifteen.  He  felt  better 
when  he  returned  Marjorie's  serve,  and  then  before 
she  could  control  herself  she  repeated  her  new  un- 
pleasant trick  of  playing  into  the  corner  again, 
whereupon,  leaping  back  with  an  agility  that  would 
have  shamed  many  a  younger  man,  Mr.  Pope  came 
upon  disaster.  He  went  spinning  down  the  treacher- 
ous slope  behind,  twisted  his  ankle  painfully  and  col- 
lapsed against  the  iron  railings  of  the  shrubbery.  It 
was  too  much,  and  he  lost  control  of  himself.  His 
daughters  had  one  instant's  glimpse  of  the  linguistic 
possibilities  of  a  strong  man's  agony.  "  I  told  her," 
he  went  on  as  if  he  had  said  nothing.  "  Tennis!" 

For  a  second  perhaps  he  seemed  to  hesitate  upon 
a  course  of  action.  Then  as  if  by  a  great  effort  he 
took  his  coat  from  the  net  post  and  addressed  himself 
houseward,  incarnate  Grand  Dudgeon — limping. 

"  Had  enough  of  it,  Mummy,"  he  said,  and  added 
some  happily  inaudible  comment  on  Marjorie's  new 
style  of  play. 


5£  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      29 

The  evening's  exercise  was  at  an  end. 

The  three  ladies  regarded  one  another  in  silence 
for  some  moments. 

"  I  will  take  in  the  racquets,  dear,"  said  Mrs, 
Pope. 

"  I  think  the  other  ball  is  at  your  end,"  said 
Daffy.  .  .  . 

The  apparatus  put  away,  Marjorie  and  her  sister 
strolled  thoughtfully  away  from  the  house. 

"  There's  croquet  here  too,"  said  Daffy.  "  We've 
not  had  the  things  out  yet !"  .  .  . 

"  He'll  play,  I  suppose." 

"  He  wants  to  play."    .    .     . 

"  Of  course,"  said  Marjorie  after  a  long  pause, 
"  there's  no  reasoning  with  Dad !" 

§6 

Character  is  one  of  England's  noblest  and  most 
deliberate  products,  but  some  Englishmen  have  it  to 
excess.  Mr.  Pope  had. 

He  was  one  of  that  large  and  representative  class 
which  imparts  a  dignity  to  national  commerce  by 
inheriting  big  businesses  from  its  ancestors.  He 
was  a  coach-builder  by  birth,  and  a  gentleman  by 
education  and  training.  He  had  been  to  City  Mer- 
chant's and  Cambridge. 

Throughout  the  earlier  half  of  the  nineteenth 
century  the  Popes  had  been  the  princes  of  the  coach- 
building  world.  Mr.  Pope's  great-grandfather  had 
been  a  North  London  wheelwright  of  conspicuous 
dexterity  and1  integrity,  who  had  founded  the  family 
business ;  his  son,  Mr.  Pope's  grandfather,  had  made 
that  business  the  occupation  of  his  life  and  brougnt 
it  to  the  pinnacle  of  pre-eminence;  his  son,  who  was 
Marjorie's  grandfather,  had  displayed  a  lesser  en- 


30  MARRIAGE 

thusiasm,  left  the  house  at  the  works  for  a  home  ten 
miles  away  and  sent  a  second  son  into  the  Church. 
It  was  in  the  days  of  the  third  Pope  that  the  business 
ceased  to  expand,  and  began  to  suffer  severely  from 
the  competition  of  an  enterprising  person  who  had 
originally  supplied  the  firm  with  varnish,  gradually 
picked  up  the  trade  in  most  other  materials  and 
accessories  needed  in  coach-building,  and  passed  on 
by  almost  imperceptible  stages  to  delivering  the  ar- 
ticle complete — dispensing  at  last  altogether  with 
the  intervention  of  Pope  and  Son — to  the  customer. 
Marjorie's  father  had  succeeded  in  the  fulness  of 
time  to  the  inheritance  this  insurgent  had  damaged. 

Mr.  Pope  was  a  man  of  firm  and  resentful  temper, 
with  an  admiration  for  Cato,  Brutus,  Cincinnatus, 
Cromwell,  Washington,  and  the  sterner  heroes  gen- 
erally, and  by  nature  a  little  ill-used  and  offended  at 
things.  He  suffered  from  indigestion  and  extreme 
irritability.  He  found  himself  in  control  of  a  busi- 
ness where  more  flexible  virtues  were  needed.  The 
Popes  based  their  fame  on  a  heavy,  proud  type  of 
vehicle,  which  the  increasing  luxury  and  triviality  of 
the  age  tended  to  replace  by  lighter  forms  of  car- 
riage, carriages  with  diminutive  and  apologetic 
names.  As  these  lighter  forms  were  not  only  lighter 
but  less  expensive,  Mr.  Pope  with  a  pathetic  confi- 
dence in  the  loyalty  of  the  better  class  of  West  End 
customer,  determined  to  "  make  a  stand "  against 
them.  He  was  the  sort  of  man  to  whom  making  a 
stand  is  in  itself  a  sombre  joy.  If  he  had  had  to 
choose  his  pose  for  a  portrait,  he  would  certainly  have 
decided  to  have  one  foot  advanced,  the  other  planted 
like  a  British  oak  behind,  the  arms  folded1  and  the 
brows  corrugated, — making  a  stand. 

Unhappily  the  stars  in  their  courses  and  the  gen- 
eral improvement  of  roads  throughout  the  country 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      31 

fought  against  him.  The  lighter  carriages,  and  es- 
pecially the  lighter  carriages  of  that  varnish-selling 
firm,  which  was  now  absorbing  businesses  right  and 
left,  prevailed  over  Mr.  Pope's  resistance.  For 
crossing  a  mountain  pass  or  fording  a  river,  for 
driving  over  the  scene  of  a  recent  earthquake  or  fol- 
lowing a  retreating  army,  for  being  run  away  with 
by  frantic  horses  or  crushing  a  personal  enemy, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  the  Pope  carriages  remained 
to  the  very  last  the  best  possible  ones  and  fully  worth 
the  inflexible  price  demanded.  Unhappily  all  car- 
riages in  a  civilization  essentially  decadent  are  not 
subjected  to  these  tests,  and  the  manufactures  of  his 
rivals  were  not  only  much  cheaper,  but  had  a  sort  of 
meretricious  smartness,  a  disingenuous  elasticity, 
above  all  a  levity,  hateful  indeed  to  the  spirit  of  Mr. 
Pope  yet  attractive  to  the  wanton  customer.  Busi- 
ness dwindled.  Nevertheless  the  habitual  element  in 
the  good  class  customer  did  keep  things  going,  albeit 
on  a  shrinking  scale,  until  Mr.  Pope  came  to  the  un- 
fortunate decision  that  he  would  make  a  stand  against 
automobiles.  He  regarded  them  as  an  intrusive 
nuisance  which  had  to  be  seen  only  to  be  disowned  by 
the  landed  gentry  of  England.  Rather  than  build  a 
car  he  said  he  would  go  out  of  business.  He  went  out 
of  business.  Within  five  years  of  this  determination 
he  sold  out  the  name,  good  will,  and  other  vestiges  of 
his  concern  to  a  mysterious  buyer  who  turned  out  to 
be  no  more  than  an  agent  for  these  persistently  ex- 
panding varnish  makers,  and  he  retired  with  a  gen- 
uine grievance  upon  the  family  accumulations — 
chiefly  in  Consols  and  Home  Railways. 

He  refused  however  to  regard  his  defeat  as  final, 
put  great  faith  in  the  approaching  exhaustion  of  the 
petrol  supply,  and  talked  in  a  manner  that  should 
have  made  the  Automobile  Association  uneasy,  of 


32  MARRIAGE 

devoting  the  rest  of  his  days  to  the  purification  of 
England  from  these  aggressive  mechanisms.  "  It 
was  a  mistake,"  he  said,  "  to  let  them  in."  He  became 
more  frequent  at  his  excellent  West  End  club,  and 
directed  a  certain  portion  of  his  capital  to  largely 
indecisive  but  on  the  whole  unprofitable  speculations 
in  South  African  and  South  American  enterprises. 
He  mingled  a  little  in  affairs.  He  was  a  tough  con- 
ventional speaker,  rich  in  established  phrases  and 
never  abashed  by  hearing  himself  say  commonplace 
things,  and  in  addition  to  his  campaign  against  auto- 
mobiles he  found  time  to  engage  also  in  quasi-politi- 
cal activities,  taking  chairs,  saying  a  few  words  and 
so  on,  cherishing  a  fluctuating  hope  that  his  eloquence 
might  ultimately  win  him  an  invitation  to  contest  a 
constituency  in  the  interests  of  reaction  and  the 
sounder  elements  in  the  Liberal  party. 

He  had  a  public-spirited  side,  and  he  was  particu- 
larly attracted  by  that  mass  of  modern  legislative 
proposals  which  aims  at  a  more  systematic  control  of 
the  lives  of  lower  class  persons  for  their  own  good  by 
their  betters.  Indeed,  in  the  first  enthusiasm  of  his 
proprietorship  of  the  Pope  works  at  East  Purblow, 
he  had  organized  one  of  those  benevolent  industrial 
experiments  that  are  now  so  common.  He  felt 
strongly  against  the  drink  evil,  that  is  to  say,  the 
unrestricted  liberty  of  common  people  to  drink  what 
they  prefer,  and  he  was  acutely  impressed  by  the 
fact  that  working-class  families  do  not  spend  their 
money  in  the  way  that  seems  most  desirable  to  upper 
middle-class  critics.  Accordingly  he  did  his  best  to 
replace  the  dangerous  freedoms  of  money  by  that 
ideal  of  the  social  reformer,  Payment  in  Kind.  To 
use  his  invariable  phrase,  the  East  Purblow  experi- 
ment did  "  no  mean  service  "  to  the  cause  of  social 
reform.  Unhappily  it  came  to  an  end  through  a 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      33 

prosecution  under  the  Truck  Act,  that  blot  upon  the 
Statute  Book,  designed,  it  would  appear,  even  delib- 
erately to  vitiate  man's  benevolent  control  of  his 
fellow  man.  The  lessons  to  be  drawn  from  that 
experience,  however,  grew  if  anything  with  the  years. 
He  rarely  spoke  without  an  allusion  to  it,  and  it  was 
quite  remarkable  how  readily  it  could  be  adapted  to 
illuminate  a  hundred  different  issues  in  the  hospitable 
columns  of  the  Spectator.  .  .  . 

§7 

At  seven  o'clock  Marjorie  found  herself  upstairs 
changing  into  her  apple-green  frock.  She  had  had  a 
good  refreshing  wash  in  cold  soft  water,  and  it  was 
pleasant  to  change  into  thinner  silk  stockings  and 
dainty  satin  slippers  and  let  down  and  at  last  brush 
her  hair  and  dress  loiteringly  after  the  fatigues  of  her 
journey  and  the  activities  of  her  arrival.  She 
looked  out  on  the  big  church  and  the  big  trees  behind 
it  against  the  golden  quiet  of  a  summer  evening  with 
extreme  approval. 

"  I  suppose  those  birds  are  rooks,"  she  said. 

But  Daffy  had  gone  to  see  that  the  pseudo-twins 
had  done  themselves  justice  in  their  muslin  frocks  and 
pink  sashes ;  they  were  apt  to  be  a  little  sketchy  with 
their  less  accessible  buttons. 

Marjorie  became  aware  of  two  gentlemen  with 
her  mother  on  the  lawn  below. 

One  was  her  almost  affianced  lover,  Will  Magnet, 
the  humorous  writer.  She  had  been  doing  her  best 
not  to  think  about  him  all  day,  but  now  he  became  an 
unavoidable  central  fact.  She  regarded  him  with  an 
almost  perplexed  scrutiny,  and  wondered  vividly  why 
she  had  been  so  excited  and  pleased  by  his  attentions 
during  the  previous  summer. 


34  MARRIAGE 

Mr.  Magnet  was  one  of  those  quiet,  deliberately 
unassuming  people  who  do  not  even  attempt  to  be 
beautiful.  Not  for  him  was  it  to  pretend,  but  to 
prick  the  bladder  of  pretence.  He  was  a  fairish  man 
of  forty,  pale,  with  a  large  protruberant,  observant 
grey  eye — I  speak  particularly  of  the  left — and  a 
face  of  quiet  animation  warily  alert  for  the  wit's  op- 
portunity. His  nose  and  chin  were  pointed,  and  his 
lips  thin  and  quaintly  pressed  together.  He  was 
dressed  in  grey,  with  a  low-collared  silken  shirt  show- 
ing a  thin  neck,  and  a  flowing  black  tie,  and  he  car- 
ried a  grey  felt  hat  in  his  joined  hands  behind  his 
back.  She  could  hear  the  insinuating  cadences  of  his 
voice  as  he  talked  in  her  mother's  ear.  The  other 
gentleman,  silent  on  her  mother's  right,  must,  she 
knew,  be  Mr.  Wintersloan,  whom  Mr.  Magnet  had 
proposed  to  bring  over.  His  dress  betrayed  that 
modest  gaiety  of  disposition  becoming  in  an  artist, 
and  indeed  he  was  one  of  Mr.  Magnet's  favourite 
illustrators.  He  was  in  a  dark  bluish-grey  suit;  a 
black  tie  that  was  quite  unusually  broad  went  twice 
around  his  neck  before  succumbing  to  the  bow,  and 
his  waistcoat  appeared  to  be  of  some  gaily-patterned 
orange  silk.  Marjorie's  eyes  returned  to  Mr.  Mag- 
net. Hitherto  she  had  never  had  an  opportunity  of 
remarking  that  his  hair  was  more  than  a  little  atten- 
uated towards  the  crown.  It  was  funny  how  his  tie 
came  out  under  his  chin  to  the  right. 

What  an  odd  thing  men's  dress  had  become,  she 
thought.  Why  did  they  wear  those  ridiculous  collars 
and  ties?  Why  didn't  they  always  dress  in  flannels 
and  look  as  fine  and  slender  and  active  as  the  elder 
Carmel  boy  for  example?  Mr.  Magnet  couldn't  be 
such  an  ill-shaped  man.  Why  didn't  every  one  dress 
to  be  just  as  beautiful  and  splendid  as  possible? — 
instead  of  wearing  queer  things ! 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  .POPES      35 

"  Coming  down  ?"  said  Daffy,  a  vision  of  sulphur- 
yellow,  appearing  in  the  doorway. 

"  Let  them  go  first,"  said  Marjorie,  with  a  finer 
sense  of  effect.  "  And  Theodore.  We  don't  want  to 
make  part  of  a  comic  entry  with  Theodore,  Daffy." 

Accordingly,  the  two  sisters  watched  discreetly — 
they  had  to  be  wary  on  account  of  Mr.  Magnet's 
increasingly  frequent  glances  at  the  windows — and 
when  at  last  all  the  rest  of  the  family  had  appeared 
below,  they  decided  their  cue  had  come.  Mr.  Pope 
strolled  into  the  group,  with  no  trace  of  his  recent 
debacle  except  a  slight  limp.  He  was  wearing  a 
jacket  of  damson-coloured  velvet,  which  he  affected 
in  the  country,  and  all  traces  of  his  Grand  Dudgeon 
were  gone.  But  then  he  rarely  had  Grand  Dudgeon 
except  in  the  sanctities  of  family  life,  and  hardly  ever 
when  any  other  man  was  about. 

"  Well,"  his  daughters  heard  him  say,  with  a 
witty  allusiveness  that  was  difficult  to  follow,  "  so 
the  Magnet  has  come  to  the  Mountain  again — eh?" 

"  Come  on,  Madge,"  said  Daffy,  and  the  two  sis- 
ters emerged  harmoniously  together  from  the  house. 

It  would  have  been  manifest  to  a  meaner  capacity 
than  any  present  that  evening  that  Mr.  Magnet  re- 
garded Marjorie  with  a  distinguished  significance. 
He  had  two  eyes,  but  he  had  that  mysterious  quality 
so  frequently  associated  with  a  bluish-grey  iris  which 
gives  the  effect  of  looking  hard  with  one  large  orb,  a 
sort  of  grey  searchlight  effect,  and  he  used  this  eye 
ray  now  to  convey  a  respectful  but  firm  admiration 
in  the  most  unequivocal  manner.  He  saluted  Daffy 
courteously,  and  then  allowed  himself  to  retain  Mar- 
jorie's  hand  for  just  a  second  longer  than  was  neces- 
sary as  he  said — very  simply — "  I  am  very  pleased 
indeed  to  meet  you  again — very." 

A  slight  embarrassment  fell  between  them. 


36  MARRIAGE 

"  You  are  staying  near  here,  Mr.  Magnet  ?" 

"  At  the  inn,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  and  then,  "  I 
chose  it  because  it  would  be  near  you." 

His  eye  pressed  upon  her  again  for  a  moment. 

"  Is  it  comfortable?"  said  Marjorie. 

"  So  charmingly  simple,"  said  Mr.  Magnet.  "  I 
love  it." 

A  tinkling  bell  announced  the  preparedness  of 
supper,  and  roused  the  others  to  the  consciousness 
that  they  were  silently  watching  Mr.  Magnet  and 
Marjorie. 

"  It's  quite  a  simple  farmhouse  supper,"  said 
Mrs.  Pope. 

§  8 

There  were  ducks,  green  peas,  and  adolescent  new 
potatoes  for  supper,  and  afterwards  stewed  fruit 
and  cream  and  junket  and  cheese,  bottled  beer,  Gil- 
bey's  Burgundy,  and  home-made  lemonade.  Mrs. 
Pope  carved,  because  Mr.  Pope  splashed  too  much, 
and  bones  upset  him  and  made  him  want  to  show  up 
chicken  in  the  Times.  So  he  sat  at  the  other  end 
and  rallied  his  guests  while  Mrs.  Pope  distributed  the 
viands.  He  showed  not  a  trace  of  his  recent  um- 
brage. Theodore  sat  between  Daffy  and  kis  mother 
because  of  his  table  manners,  and  Marjorie  was  on 
her  father's  right  hand  and  next  to  Mr.  Wiatersloan, 
while  Mr.  Magnet  was  in  the  middle  of  the  table  on 
the  opposite  side  in  a  position  convenient  for  looking 
at  her.  Both  maids  waited. 

The  presence  of  Magnet  invariably  stirred  the 
latent  humorist  in  Mr.  Pope.  He  felt  that  he  who 
talks  to  humorists  should  himself  be  humorous,  and  it 
was  his  private  persuasion  that  with  more  attention 
he  might  have  been,  to  ,use  a  favourite  form  of  ex- 
pression, "no  mean  jester."  Quite  a  lot  of  little 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      37 

things  of  his  were  cherished  as  "  Good "  both  by 
himself  and,  with  occasional  inaccuracies,  by  Mrs. 
Pope.  He  opened  out  now  in  a  strain  of  rich  allu- 
siveness. 

"  What  will  you  drink,  Mr.  Wintersloan  ?"  he 
said.  "  Wine  of  the  country,  yclept  beer,  red  wine 
from  France,  or  my  wife's  potent  brew  from  the  gol- 
den lemon?" 

Mr.  Wintersloan  thought  he  would  take  Bur- 
gundy. Mr.  Magnet  preferred  beer. 

"I've  heard  there's  iron  in  the  Beer, 
And  I  believe  it," 

misquoted  Mr.  Pope,  and  nodded  as  it  were  to  the 
marker  to  score.  "  Daffy  and  Marjorie  are  still  in 
the  lemonade  stage.  Will  you  take  a  little  Burgundy 
to-night,  Mummy?" 

Mrs.  Pope  decided  she  would,  and  was  inspired  to 
ask  Mr.  Wintersloan  if  he  had  been  in  that  part  of 
the  country  before.  Topography  ensued.  Mr.  Win- 
tersloan had  a  style  of  his  own,  and  spoke  of  the 
Buryhamstreet  district  as  a  "  pooty  little  country — 
pooty  little  hills,  with  a  swirl  in  them." 

This  pleased  Daffy  and  Marjorie,  and  their  eyes 
met  for  a  moment. 

Then  Mr.  Magnet,  with  a  ray  full  on  Marjorie, 
said  he  had  always  been  fond  of  Surrey.  "  I  think 
if  ever  I  made  a  home  in  the  country  I  should  like  it 
to  be  here." 

Mr.  Wintersloan  said  Surrey  would  tire  him,  it 
was  too  bossy  and  curly,  too  flocculent;  he  would 
prefer  to  look  on  broader,  simpler  lines,  with  just  a 
sudden  catch  in  the  breath  in  them — if  you  under- 
stand me? 

Marjorie  did,  and  said  so. 


38  MARRIAGE 

"  A  sob — such  as  you  get  at  the  break  of  a  pine- 
wood  on  a  hill." 

This  baffled  Mr.  Pope,  but  Marjorie  took  it.  "Or 
the  short  dry  cough  of  a  cliff,"  she  said. 

"  Exactly,"  said  Mr.  Wintersloan,  and  having 
turned  a  little  deliberate  close-lipped  smile  on  her  for 
a  moment,  resumed  his  wing. 

"  So  long  as  a  landscape  doesn't  sneeze"  said 
Mr.  Magnet,  in  that  irresistible  dry  way  of  his,  and 
Rom  and  Sydney,  at  any  rate,  choked. 

"  Now  is  the  hour  when  Landscapes  yawn," 
mused  Mr.  Pope,  coming  in  all  right  at  the  end. 

Then  Mrs.  Pope  asked  Mr.  Wintersloan,  about 
his  route  to  Buryhamstreet,  and  then  Mr.  Pope  asked 
Mr.  Magnet  whether  he  was  playing  at  a  new  work 
or  working  at  a  new  play. 

Mr.  Magnet  said  he  was  dreaming  over  a  play. 
He  wanted  to  bring  out  the  more  serious  side  of  his 
humour,  go  a  little  deeper  into  things  than  he  had 
hitherto  done. 

"  Mingling  smiles  and  tears,"  said  Mr.  Pope  ap- 
provingly. 

Mr.  Magnet  said  very  quietly  that  all  true  hu- 
mour did  that. 

Then  Mrs.  Pope  asked  what  the  play  was  to  be 
about,  and  Mr.  Magnet,  who  seemed  disinclined  to 
give  an  answer,  turned  the  subject  by  saying  he  had 
to  prepare  an  address  on  humour  for  the  next  dinner 
of  the  Literati.  "  It's  to  be  a  humourist's  dinner, 
and  they've  made  me  the  guest  of  the  evening — by 
way  of  a  joke  to  begin  with,"  he  said  with  that  dry 
smile  again. 

Mrs.  Pope  said  he  shouldn't  say  things  like  that. 
She  then  said  "  Syd !"  quietly  but  sharply  to  Sydney, 
who  was  making  a  disdainful,  squinting  face  at  Theo- 
dore, and  told  the  parlourmaid  to  clear  the  plates 


A.  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      39 

for  sweets.  Mr.  Magnet  professed  great  horror  of 
public  speaking.  He  said  that  whenever  he  rose  to 
make  an  after-dinner  speech  all  the  ices  he  had  ever 
eaten  seemed  to  come  out  of  the  past,  and  sit  on  his 
backbone. 

The  talk  centered  for  awhile  on  Mr.  Magnet's 
address,  and  apropos  of  Tests  of  Humour  Mr.  Pope, 
who  in  his  way  was  "  no  mean  raconteur,"  related  the 
story  of  the  man  who  took  the  salad  dressing  with 
his  hand,  and  when  his  host  asked  why  he  did  that, 
replied :  "  Oh !  I  thought  it  was  spinach !" 

"  Many  people,"  added  Mr.  Pope,  "  wouldn't  see 
the  point  of  that.  And  if  they  don't  see  the  point 
they  can't — and  the  more  they  try  the  less  they  do." 

All  four  girls  hoped  secretly  and  not  too  confi- 
dently that  their  laughter  had  not  sounded  hollow. 

And  then  for  a  time  the  men  told  stories  as  they 
came  into  their  heads  in  an  easy,  irresponsible  way. 
Mr.  Magnet  spoke  of  the  humour  of  the  omnibus- 
driver  who  always  dangled  and  twiddled  his  badge 
"  by  way  of  a  joke  "  when  he  passed  the  conductor 
whose  father  had  been  hanged,  and  Mr.  Pope,  per- 
haps a  little  irrelevantly,  told  the  story  of  the  little 
boy  who  was  asked  his  father's  last  words,  and  said 
66  mother  was  with  him  to  the  end,"  which  particularly 
amused  Mrs.  Pope.  Mr.  Wintersloan  gave  the  story 
of  the  woman  who  was  taking  her  son  to  the  hospital 
with  his  head  jammed  into  a  saucepan,  and  explain- 
ed to  the  other  people  in  the  omnibus:  "You  see, 
what  makes  it  so  annoying,  it's  me  only  saucepan !" 
Then  they  came  back  to  the  Sense  of  Humour  with 
the  dentist  who  shouted  with  laughter,  and  when  asked 
the  reason  by  his  patient,  choked  out :  "  Wrong 
tooth!"  and  then  Mr.  Pope  reminded  them  of  the 
heartless  husband  who,  suddenly  informed  that  his 


40  MARRIAGE 

mother-in-law  was  dead,  exclaimed  "  Oh,  don't  make 
me  laugh,  please,  I've  got  a  split  lip.    .     .    .  r 

§9 

The  conversation  assumed  a  less  anecdotal  qual- 
ity with  the  removal  to  the  drawing-room.  On  Mr. 
Magnet's  initiative  the  gentlemen  followed  the  ladies 
almost  immediately,  and  it  was  Mr.  Magnet  who 
remembered  that  Marjorie  could  sing. 

Both  the  elder  sisters  indeed  had  sweet  clear 
voices,  and  they  had  learnt  a  number  of  those  jolly 
songs  the  English  made  before  the  dull  Hanoverians 
came.  Syd  accompanied,  and  Rom  sat  back  in  the 
low  chair  in  the  corner  and  fell  deeply  in  love  with 
Mr.  Wintersloan.  The  three  musicians  in  their  green 
and  sulphur-yellow  and  white  made  a  pretty  group 
in  the  light  of  the  shaded  lamp  against  the  black  and 
gold  Broadwood,  the  tawdry  screen,  its  pattern  thin 
glittering  upon  darkness,  and  the  deep  shadows  be- 
hind. Majorie  loved  singing,  and  forgot  herself  as 
she  sang. 

"I  love,  and  he  loves  me  again, 

Yet  dare  I  not  tell  who; 
For  if  the  nymphs  should  know  my  swain, 
I  fear  they'd  love  him  too," 

she  sang,   and  Mr.   Magnet   could  not   conceal  the 
intensity  of  his  admiration. 

Mr.  Pope  had  fallen  into  a  pleasant  musing; 
several  other  ripe  old  yarns,  dear  delicious  old  things, 
had  come  into  his  mind  that  he  felt  he  might  pres- 
ently recall  when  this  unavoidable  display  of  accom- 
plishments was  overpast,  and  it  was  with  one  of  them 
almost  on  his  lips  that  he  glanced  across  at  his  guest. 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      41 

He  was  surprised  to  see  Mr.  Magnet's  face  trans- 
figured. He  was  sitting  forward,  looking  up  at  Mar- 
jorie,  and  he  had  caught  something  of  the  expression 
of  those  blessed  boys  who  froth  at  the  feet  of  an 
Assumption.  For  an  instant  Mr.  Pope  did  not 
understand. 

Then  he  understood.  It  was  Marjorie!  He  had 
a  twinge  of  surprise,  and  glanced  at  his  own  daugh- 
ter as  though  he  had  never  seen  her  before.  He  per- 
ceived in  a  flash  for  the  first  time  that  this  trouble- 
some, clever,  disrespectful  child  was  tall  and  shapely 
and  sweet,  and  indeed  quite  a  beautiful  young 
woman.  He  forgot  his  anecdotes.  His  being  was 
suffused  with  pride  and  responsibility  and  the  sense 
of  virtue  rewarded.  He  did  not  reflect  for  a  moment 
that  Marjorie  embodied  in  almost  equal  proportions 
the  very  best  points  in  his  mother  and  his  mother-in- 
law,  and  avoided  his  own  more  salient  characteristics 
with  so  neat  a  dexterity  that  from  top  to  toe,  except 
for  the  one  matter  of  colour,  not  only  did  she  not 
resemble  him  but  she  scarcely  even  alluded  to  him. 
He  thought  simply  that  she  was  his  daughter,  that 
she  derived  from  him,  that  her  beauty  was  his.  She 
was  the  outcome  of  his  meritorious  preparations.  He 
recalled  all  the  moments  when  he  had  been  kind  and 
indulgent  to  her,  all  the  bills  he  had  paid  for  her ;  all 
the  stresses  and  trials  of  the  coachbuilding  collapse, 
all  the  fluctuations  of  his  speculative  adventures, 
became  things  he  had  faced  patiently  and  valiantly 
for  her  sake.  He  forgot  the  endless  times  when  he 
had  been  viciously  cross  with  her,  all  the  times  when 
he  had  pished  and  tushed  and  sworn  in  her  hearing. 
He  had  on  provocation  and  in  spite  of  her  mother's 
protests  slapped  her  pretty  vigorously,  but  such 
things  are  better  forgotten;  nor  did  he  recall  how 
bitterly  he  had  opposed  the  college  education  which 


42  MARRIAGE 

had  made  her  now  so  clear  in  eye  and  thought,  nor 
the  frightful  shindy,  only  three  months  since,  about 
that  identical  green  dress  in  which  she  now  stood 
delightful.  He  forgot  these  petty  details,  as  an 
idealist  should.  There  she  was,  his  daughter.  An 
immense  benevolence  irradiated  his  soul — for  Mar- 
jorie — for  Magnet.  His  eyes  were  suffused  with  a 
not  ignoble  tenderness.  The  man,  he  knew,  was 
worth  at  least  thirty-five  thousand  pounds,  a  discus- 
sion of  investments  had  made  that  clear,  and  he  must 
be  making  at  least  five  thousand  a  year!  A  beauti- 
ful girl,  a  worthy  man !  A  good  fellow,  a  sound  good 
fellow,  a  careful  fellow  too — as  these  fellows  went ! 

Old  Daddy  would  lose  his  treasure  of  course. 

Well,  a  father  must  learn  resignation,  and  he  for 
one  would  not  stand  in  the  way  of  his  girl's  happi- 
ness. A  day  would  come  when,  very  beautifully  and 
tenderly,  he  would  hand  her  over  to  Magnet,  his 
favourite  daughter  to  his  trusted  friend.  "  Well, 

my  boy,  there's  no  one  in  all  the  world "  he 

would  begin. 

It  would  be  a  touching  parting.  "  Don't  forget 
your  old  father,  Maggots,"  he  would  say.  At  such  a 
moment  that  quaint  nickname  would  surely  not  be 
resented.  .  .  . 

He  reflected  how  much  he  had  always  preferred 
Marjorie  to  Daffy.  She  was  brighter — more  like 
him.  Daffy  was  unresponsive,  with  a  touch  of  bit- 
terness under  her  tongue.  .  .  . 

He  was  already  dreaming  he  was  a  widower, 
rather  infirm,  the  object  of  Magnet's  and  Mar  j  oriels 
devoted  care,  when  the  song  ceased,  and  the  wife  he 
had  for  the  purpose  of  reveries  just  consigned  so 
carelessly  to  the  cemetery  proposed  that  they  should 
have  a  little  game  that  every  one  could  play  at.  A 
number  of  pencils  and  slips  of  paper  appeared  in  her 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES      43 

hands.  She  did  not  want  the  girls  to  exhaust  their 
repertory  on  this  first  occasion — and  besides,  Mr. 
Pope  liked  games  in  which  one  did  things  with  pen- 
cils and  strips  of  paper.  Mr.  Magnet  wished  the 
singing  to  go  on,  he  said,  but  he  was  overruled. 

So  for  a  time  every  one  played  a  little  game  in 
which  Mr.  Pope  was  particularly  proficient.  Indeed, 
it  was  rare  that  any  one  won  but  Mr.  Pope.  It  was 
called  "  The  Great  Departed,"  and  it  had  such  con- 
siderable educational  value  that  all  the  children  had 
to  play  at  it  whenever  he  wished. 

It  was  played  in  this  manner;  one  of  the  pseudo 
twins  opened  a  book  and  dabbed  a  finger  on  the  page, 
and  read  out  the  letter  immediately  at  the  tip  of  her 
finger,  then  all  of  them  began  to  write  as  hard  as  they 
could,  writing  down  the  names  of  every  great  person 
they  could  think  of,  whose  name  began  with  that 
letter.  At  the  end  of  five  minutes  Mr.  Pope  said 
Stop !  and  then  began  to  read  his  list  out,  beginning 
with  the  first  name.  Everybody  who  had  that  name 
crossed  it  out  and  scored  one,  and  after  his  list  was 
exhausted  all  the  surviving  names  on  the  next  list  were 
read  over  in  the  same  way,  and1  so  on.  The  names 
had  to  be  the  names  of  dead  celebrated  people,  only 
one  monarch  of  the  same  name  of  the  same  dynasty 
was  allowed,  and  Mr.  Pope  adjudicated  on  all  doubt- 
ful cases.  It  was  great  fun. 

The  first  two  games  were  won  as  usual  by  Mr. 
Pope,  and  then  Mr.  Wintersloan,  who  had  been  a 
little  distraught  in  his  manner,  brightened  up  and 
scribbled  furiously. 

The  letter  was  D,  and  after  Mr.  Pope  had  re- 
hearsed a  tale  of  nine  and  twenty  names,  Mr.  Win- 
tersloan read  out  his  list  in  that  curious  voice  of  his 
which  suggested  nothing  so  much  as  some  mobile 
drink  glucking  out  of  the  neck  of  a  bottle  held  upside 
down. 


44  MARRIAGE 

"  Dahl,"  he  began. 

"Who  was  Dahl?"  asked  Mr.  Pope. 

"  'Vented  dahlias,"  said  Mr.  Wintersloan,  with  a 
sigh.  "  Danton." 

"  Forgot  him,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"  Davis." 

"Davis?" 

"  Davis  Straits.     Doe." 

"SVho?" 

"  John  Doe,  Richard  Roe." 

"  Legal  fiction,  I'm  afraid,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"Dam,"  said  Mr.  Wintersloan,  and  added  after 
a  slight  pause :  "  Anthony  van." 

Mr.  Pope  made  an  interrogative  noise. 

"  Painter — eighteenth  century — Dutch.  Dam,  Jan 
van,  his  son.  Dam,  Frederich  van.  Dam,  Wilhelm 
van.  Dam,  Diedrich  van.  Dam,  Wilhelmina,  wood 
engraver,  gifted  woman.  Diehl." 

"Who?" 

"  Painter — dead — famous.  See  Diisseldorf.  It's 
all  painters  now — all  guaranteed  dead,  all  good  men. 
Deeds  of  Norfolk,  the  aquarellist,  Denton,  Dibbs." 

"Er?"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"  The  Warwick  Claude,  you  know.     Died  1823." 

"  DicksoB,  Dunting,  John  Dickery.  Peter  Dick- 
ery,  William  Dock — I  beg  your  pardon?" 

Mr.  Pope  was  making  a  protesting  gesture,  but 
Mr.  Wintersloan's  bearing  was  invincible,  and  he 
proceeded. 

In  the  end  ne  emerged  triumphant  with  forty- 
nine  names,  mostly  painters  for  whose  fame  he 
answered,  but  whose  reputations  were  certainly  new 
to  every  one  else  present.  "I  can  go  on  like  that," 
said  Mr.  Wintersloan,  "  with  any  letter,"  and  turn- 
ed that  hard  little  smile  full  on  Marjorie.  "  I  didn't 
see  how  to  do  it  at  first.  I  just  cast  about.  But  I 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES       45 

know  a  frightful  lot  of  painters.  No  end.  Shall  we 
try  again?" 

Marjorie  glancea  at  her  father.  Mr.  Winter- 
sloan's  methods  were  all  too  evident  to  her.  A 
curious  feeling  pervaded  the  room  that  Mr.  Pope 
didn't  think  Mr.  Wintersloan's  conduct  honourable, 
and  that  he  might  even  go  some  way  towards  saying 
so. 

So  Mrs.  Pope  became  very  brisk  and  stirring,  and 
said  she  thought  that  now  perhaps  a  charade  would 
be  more  amusing.  It  didn't  do  to  keep  on  at  a  game 
too  long.  She  asked  Rom  and  Daphne  and  Theodore 
and  Mr.  Wintersloan  to  go  out,  and  they  all  agreed 
readily,  particularly  Rom.  "  Come  on !"  said  Rom 
to  Mr.  .Wintersloan.  Everybody  else  shifted  into  an 
audience-like  group  between  the  piano  and  the  what- 
not. Mr.  Magnet  sat  at  Marjorie's  feet,  while  Syd 
played  a  kind  of  voluntary,  and  Mr.  Pope  leant  back 
in  his  chair,  with  his  brows  knit  and  lips  moving, 
trying  to  remember  something. 

The  charade  was  very  amusing.  The  word  was 
Catarrh,  and  Mr.  Wintersloan,  as  the  patient  in  the 
last  act  being  given  gruel,  surpassed  even  the  chil- 
dren's very  high  expectations.  Rom,  as  his  nurse, 
couldn't  keep  her  hands  off  him.  Then  the  younger 
people  kissed  round  and  were  packed  off  to  bed,  and 
the  rest  of  the  party  went  to  the  door  upon  the  lawn 
and  admired  the  night.  It  was  a  glorious  summer 
night,  deep  blue,  and  rimmed  warmly  by  the  after- 
glow, moonless,  and  with  a  few  big  lamp-like  stars 
above  the  black  still  shapes  of  trees. 

Mrs.  Pope  said  they  would  all  accompany  their 
guests  to  the  gate  at  the  end  of  the  avenue — in  spite 
of  the  cockchafers. 

Mr.  Pope's  ankle,  however,  excused  him ;  the  cor- 
diality of  his  parting  from  Mr.  Wintersloan  seemed 


46  MARRIAGE 

a  trifle  forced,  and  he  limped  thoughtfully  and  a 
little  sombrely  towards  the  study  to  see  if  he  could 
find  an  Encyclopaedia  or  some  such  book  of  reference 
that  would  give  the  names  of  the  lesser  lights  of 
Dutch,  Italian,  and  English  painting  during  the  last 
two  centuries. 

He  felt  that  Mr.  Wintersloan  had  established  an 
extraordinarily  bad  precedent. 


10 


Marjorie  discovered  that  she  and  Mr.  Magnet  had 
fallen  a  little  behind  the  others.  She  would  have 
quickened  her  pace,  but  Mr.  Magnet  stopped  short 
and  said:  "Marjorie!" 

"  When  I  saw  you  standing  there  and  singing," 
said  Mr.  Magnet,  and  was  short  of  breath  for  a 
moment. 

Marjorie's  natural  gift  for  interruption  failed 
her  altogether. 

"  I  felt  I  would  rather  be  able  to  call  you  mine — 
than  win  an  empire." 

The  pause  seemed  to  lengthen,  between  them,  and 
Marjorie's  remark  when  she  made  it  at  last  struck  hei 
even  as  she  made  it  as  being  but  poorly  conceived. 
She  had  some  weak  idea  of  being  self-depreciatory. 

"  I  think  you  had  better  win  an  empire,  Mr. 
Magnet,"  she  said  meekly. 

Then,  before  anything  more  was  possible,  they 
had  come  up  to  Daffy  and  Mr.  Wintersloan  and  her 
mother  at  the  gate  .  .  . 

As  they  returned  Mrs.  Pope  was  loud  in  the 
praises  of  Will  Magnet.  She  had  a  little  clear-cut 
voice,  very  carefully  and  very  skilfully  controlled, 
and  she  dilated  on  his  modesty,  his  quiet  helpfulness 


A  DAY  WITH  THE  POPES       47 

at  table,  his  ready  presence  of  mind.  She  pointed 
out  instances  of  those  admirable  traits,  incidents 
small  in  themselves  but  charming  in  their  implica- 
tions. When  somebody  wanted  junket,  he  had  made 
no  fuss,  he  had  just  helped  them  to  junket.  "  So 
modest  and  unassuming,"  sang  Mrs.  Pope.  "You'd 
never  dream  he  was  quite  rich  and  famous.  Yet 
every  book  he  writes  is  translated  into  Russian  and 
German  and  all  sorts  of  languages.  I  suppose  he's 
almost  the  greatest  humorist  we  have.  That  play  of 
his ;  what  is  it  called? — Our  Owd  Woman —  has  been 
performed  nearly  twelve  hundred  times  !  I  think  that 
is  the  most  wonderful  of  gifts.  Think  of  the  people 
it  has  made  happy." 

The  conversation  was  mainly  monologue.     Both 
Marjorie  and  Daffy  were  unusually  thoughtful. 


Marjorie  ended  the  long  day  in  a  worldly  mood1. 

"  Penny  for  your  thoughts,"  said  Daffy  abruptly, 
brushing  the  long  firelit  rapids  of  her  hair. 

"  Not  for  sale,"  said  Marjorie,  and  roused  her- 
self. "  I've  had  a  long  day." 

"  It's  always  just  the  time  I  particularly  wish  I 
was  a  man,"  she  remarked  after  a  brief  return  to 
meditation.  "  Fancy,  no  hair-pins,  no  brushing,  no 
tie-up  to  get  lost  about,  no  strings.  I  suppose  they 
haven't  strings?" 

"  They  haven't,"  said  Daffy  with  conviction. 

She  met  Marj  orie's  interrogative  eye.  "  Father 
would  swear  at  them,"  she  explained.  "  He'd  natur- 
ally tie  himself  up — and  we  should  hear  of  it." 

"  I  didn't  think  of  that,"  said  Marjorie,  and  stuck 
out  her  chin  upon  her  fists.  "  Sound  induction." 


48  MARRIAGE 

She  forgot  this  transitory  curiosity. 

"  Suppose  one  had  a  maid,  Daffy — a  real  maid 
.  .  .  a  maid  who  mended  your  things  .  .  .  did 
your  hair  while  you  read.  .  .  .  ' 

"  Oh!  here  goes,"  and  she  stood  up  and  grappled 
with  tjje  task  of  undressing, 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

THE  Two  PROPOSALS  or  MR.  MAGNET 
§  1 

IT  was  presently  quite  evident  to  Marjorie  that  Mr. 
Magnet  intended  to  propose  marriage  to  her,  and 
she  did  not  even  know  whether  she  wanted  him  to  do 
so. 

She  had  met  him  first  the  previous  summer  while 
she  had  been  staying  with  the  Petley-Cresthams  at 
High  Windower,  and  it  had  been  evident  that  he  found 
her  extremely  attractive.  She  had  never  had  a  real 
grown  man  at  her  feet  before,  and  she  had  found  it 
amazingly  entertaining.  She  had  gone  for  a  walk 
with  him  the  morning  before  she  came  away — a  frank 
and  ingenuous  proceeding  that  made  Mrs.  Petley- 
Crestham  say  the  girl  knew  what  she  was  about,  and 
she  had  certainly  coquetted  with  him  in  an  extraordi- 
nary manner  at  golf-croquet.  After  that  Oxbridge 
had  swallowed  her  up,  and  though  he  had  called  once 
on  her  mother  while  Marjorie  was  in  London  during 
the  Christmas  vacation,  he  hadn't  seen  her  again.  He 
had  written — which  was  exciting — a  long  friendly 
humorous  letter  about  nothing  in  particular,  with  nn 
air  of  its  being  quite  the  correct  thing  for  him  to  do, 
and  she  had  answered,  and  there  had  been  other  ex- 
changes. But  all  sorts  of  things  had  happened  *n 
the  interval,  and  Marjorie  had  let  him  get  into  quite 
a  back  place  in  her  thoughts — the  fact  that  he  was 
a  member  of  her  father's  club  had  seemed  somehow 
to  remove  him  from  a  great  range  of  possibilities — 
until  a  drift  in  her  mother's  talk  towards  him  and  a 
letter  from  him  with  an  indefinable  change  in  tone 

40 


50  MARRIAGE 

towards  intimacy,  had1  restored  him  to  importance. 
Now  here  he  was  in  the  foreground  of  her  world  again, 
evidently  more  ardent  than  ever,  and  with  a  porten- 
tous air  of  being  about  to  do  something  decisive  at 
the  very  first  opportunity.  What  was  he  going  to 
do?  What  had  her  mother  been  hinting  at?  And 
what,  in  fact,  did  the  whole  thing  amount  to? 

Marjorie  was  beginning  to  realize  that  this  was 
going  to  be  a  very  serious  aifair  indeed  for  her — and 
that  she  was  totally  unprepared  t©  meet  it. 

It  had  been  very  amusing,  very  amusing  indeed,  at 
the  Petley-Cresthams',  but  there  were  moments  now 
when  she  felt  towards  Mr.  Magnet  exactly  as  she 
would  have  felt  if  he  had  been  one  of  the  Oxbridge 
tradesmen  hovering  about  her  with  a  "  little  account," 
full  of  apparently  exaggerated  items.  .  .  . 

Her  thoughts  and  feelings  were  all  in  confusion 
about  this  business.  Her  mind  was  full  of  scraps, 
every  sort  of  idea,  every  sort  of  attitude  contributed 
something  to  that  Twentieth  Century  jumble.  For 
example,  and  so  far  as  its  value  went  among  motives, 
it  was  by  no  means  a  trivial  consideration ;  she  wanted 
a  proposal  for  its  own  sake.  Daffy  had  had  a  pro- 
posal last  year,  and  although  it  wasn't  any  sort  of 
eligible  proposal,  still  there  it  was,  and  she  had  given 
herself  tremendous  airs.  But  Marjorie  would  cer- 
tainly have  preferred  some  lighter  kind  of  proposal 
than  that  which  now  threatened  her.  She  felt  that 
behind  Mr.  Magnet  were  sanctions;  that  she  wasn't 
free  to  deal  with  this  proposal  as  she  liked.  He  was 
at  Buryhamstreet  almost  with  the  air  of  being  her 
parents'  guest. 

Less  clear  and  more  instinctive  than  her  desire  for 
a  proposal  was  her  inclination  to  see  just  all  that  Mr. 
Magnet  was  disposed  to  do,  and  hear  all  that  he  was 
disposed  to  say.  She  was  curious.  He  didn't  behave 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   51 

in  the  least  as  she  had  expected  a  lover  to  behave. 
But  then  none  of  the  boys,  the  "  others  "  with  whom 
she  had  at  times  stretched  a  hand  towards  the  hem  of 
emotion,  had  ever  done  that.  She  had  an  obscure 
feeling  that  perhaps  presently  Mr.  Magnet  must  light 
up,  be  stirred  and  stirring.  Even  now  his  voice 
changed  very  interestingly  when  he  was  alone  with 
her.  His  breath  seemed  to  go — as  though  something 
had  pricked  his  lung.  If  it  hadn't  been  for  that  new, 
disconcerting  realization  of  an  official  pressure  behind 
him,  I  think  she  would  have  been  quite  ready  to  ex- 
periment extensively  with  his  emotions.  .  .  . 

But  she  perceived  as  she  lay  awake  next  morning 
that  she  wasn't  free  for  experiments  any  longer. 
What  she  might  say  or  do  now  would  be  taken  up  very 
conclusively.  And  she  had  no  idea  what  she  wanted 
to  say  or  do. 

Marriage  regarded  in  the  abstract — that  is  to 
say,  with  Mr.  Magnet  out  of  focus — was  by  no  means 
an  unattractive  proposal  to  her.  It  was  very  much 
at  the  back  of  Marjorie's  mind  that  after  Oxbridge, 
unless  she  was  prepared  to  face  a  very  serious  row 
indeed  and  go  to  teach  in  a  school — and  she  didn't 
feel  any  call  whatever  to  teach  in  a  school — she  would 
probably  have  to  return  to  Hartstone  Square  and 
fhare  Daffy's  room  again,  and  assist  in  the  old  col- 
lective, wearisome  task  of  propitiating  her  father. 
The  freedoms  of  Oxbridge  had  enlarged  her  imagi- 
nation until  that  seemed  an  almost  unendurably  irk- 
some prospect.  She  had  tasted  life  as  it  could  be  in 
her  father's  absence,  and  she  was  beginning  to  realize 
just  what  an  impossible  person  he  was.  Marriage 
was  escape  from  all  that;  it  meant  not  only  respect- 
ful parents  but  a  house  of  her  very  own,  furniture  of 
her  choice,  great  freedom  of  movement,  an  authority, 
an  importance.  She  had  seen  what  it  meant  to  be  a 


52  MARRIAGE 

prosperously  married  young  woman  in  the  person  of 
one  or  two  resplendent  old  girls  revisiting  Bennett 
College,  scattering  invitations,  offering  protections 
and  opportunities.  .  .  . 

Of  course  there  is  love. 

Marjorie  told  herself,  as  she  had  been  trained  to 
tell  herself,  to  be  sensible,  but  something  within  her 
repeated:  there  is  love. 

Of  course  she  liked  Mr.  Magnet.  She  really  did 
like  Mr.  Magnet  very  much.  She  had  had  her  girlish 
dreams,  had  fallen  in  love  with  pictures  of  men  and 
actors  and  a  music  master  and  a  man  who  used  to 
ride  by  as  she  went  to  school;  but  wasn't  this  deso- 
lating desire  for  self-abandonment  rather  silly? — 
something  that  one  left  behind  with  much  else  when 
it  came  to  putting  up  one's  hair  and  sensible  living, 
something  to  blush  secretly  about  and  hide  from  every 
eye? 

Among  other  discrepant  views  that  lived  together 
in  her  mind  as  cats  and  rats  and  parrots  and  squirrels 
and  so  forth  used  to  live  together  in  those  Happy 
Family  cages  unseemly  men  in  less  well-regulated  days 
were  wont  to  steer  about  our  streets,  was  one  instilled 
by  quite  a  large  proportion  of  the  novels  she  had  read, 
that  a  girl  was  a  sort  of  self-giving  prize  for  high 
moral  worth.  Mr.  Magnet  she  knew  was  good,  was 
kind,  was  brave  with  that  truer  courage,  moral  cour- 
age, which  goes  with  his  type  of  physique;  he  was 
modest,  unassuming,  well  off  and  famous,  and  very 
much  in  love  with  her.  His  True  Self,  as  Mrs.  Pope 
had  pointed  out  several  times,  must  be  really  very 
beautiful,  and  in  some  odd  way  a  line  of  Shakespeare 
had  washed  up  in  her  consciousness  as  being  somehow 
effectual  on  his  behalf: 

"Love  looks  not  with  the  eye  but  with  the  mind." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    53 

She  felt  she  ought  to  look  with  the  mind.  Nice 
people  surely  never  looked  in  any  other  way.  It 
seemed  from  this  angle  almost  her  duty  to  love 
him.  .  .  . 

Perhaps  she  did  love  him,  and  mistook  the  symp- 
toms. She  did  her  best  to  mistake  the  symptoms. 
But  if  she  did  truly  love  him,  would  it  seem  so  queer 
and  important  and  antagonistic  as  it  did  that  his 
hair  was  rather  thin  upon  the  crown  of  his  head  ? 

She  wished  she  hadn't  looked  down  on  him.    .    .    . 

Poor  Marjorie!  She  was  doing  her  best  to  be 
sensible,  and  she  felt  herself  adrift  above  a  clamorous 
abyss  of  feared  and  forbidden  thoughts.  Down  there 
she  knew  well  enough  it  wasn't  thus  that  love  must 
come.  Deep  in  her  soul,  the  richest  thing  in  her  life 
indeed  and  the  best  thing  she  had  to  give  humanity, 
was  a  craving  for  beauty  that  at  times  became  almost 
intolerable,  a  craving  for  something  other  than  beauty 
and  yet  inseparably  allied  with  it,  a  craving  for  deep 
excitement,  for  a  sort  of  glory  in  adventure,  for  pas- 
sion— for  things  akin  to  great  music  and  heroic  poems 
and  bannered  traditions  of  romance.  She  had  hidden 
away  in  her  an  immense  tumultuous  appetite  for  life, 
an  immense  tumultuous  capacity  for  living.  To  be 
loved  beautifully  was  surely  the  crown  and  climax  of 
her  being. 

She  did  not  dare  to  listen  to  these  deeps,  yet  these 
insurgent  voices  filled  her.  Even  while  she  drove  her 
little  crocodile  of  primly  sensible  thoughts  to  their 
sane  appointed  conclusion,  her  blood  and  nerves  and 
all  her  being  were  protesting  that  Mr.  Magnet  would 
not  do,  that  whatever  other  worthiness  was  in  him, 
regarded  as  a  lover  he  was  preposterous  and  flat  and 
foolish  and  middle-aged,  and  that  it  were  better  never 
to  have  lived  than  to  put  the  treasure  of  her  life  to 
his  meagre  lips  and  into  his  hungry,  unattractive 


54  MARRIAGE 

arms.  "  The  ugliness  of  it !  The  spiritless  horror  of 
it!"  so  dumbly  and  formlessly  the  rebel  voices  urged. 

"  One  has  to  be  sensible,"  said  Marjorie  to  herself, 
suddenly  putting  down  Shaw's  book  on  Municipal 
Trading,  which  she  imagined  she  had  been  read- 
ing. .  .  . 

(Perhaps  all  marriage  was  horrid,  and  one  had  to 
get  over  it.) 

That  was  rather  what  her  mother  had  conveyed 
to  her. 


Mr.  Magnet  made  his  first  proposal  in  form  three 
days  later,  after  coming  twice  to  tea  and  staying  on 
to  supper.  He  had  played  croquet  with  Mr.  Pope, 
he  had  been  beaten  twelve  times  in  spite  of  twinges  in 
the  sprained  ankle — heroically  borne — had  had  three 
victories  lucidly  explained  away,  and  heard  all  the 
particulars  of  the  East  Purblow  experiment  three 
times  over,  first  in  relation  to  the  new  Labour  Ex- 
changes, then  regarded  at  rather  a  different  angle  in 
relation  to  female  betting,  tally-men,  and  the  sancti- 
ties of  the  home  generally,  and  finally  in  a  more 
exhaustive  style,  to  show  its  full  importance  from 
every  side  and  more  particularly  as  demonstrating  the 
gross  injustice  done  to  Mr.  Pope  by  the  neglect  of  its 
lessons,  a  neglect  too  systematic  to  be  accidental,  in 
the  social  reform  literature  of  the  time.  Moreover, 
Mr.  Magnet  had  been  made  to  understand  thoroughly 
how  several  later  quasi-charitable  attempts  of  a  simi- 
lar character  had  already  become,  or  must  inevitably 
become,  unsatisfactory  through  their  failure  to  fol- 
low exactly  in  the  lines  laid  down  by  Mr.  Pope. 

Mr.  Pope  was  really  very  anxious  to  be  pleasant 
and  agreeable  to  Mr.  Magnet,  and  he  could  think  of 
no  surer  way  of  doing  so  than  by  giving  him  an 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    5.5 

unrestrained  intimacy  of  conversation  that  prevented 
anything  more  than  momentary  intercourse  between 
his  daughter  and  her  admirer.  And  not  only  did  Mr. 
Magnet  find  it  difficult  to  get  away  from  Mr.  Pope 
without  offence,  but  whenever  by  any  chance  Mr. 
Pope  was  detached  for  a  moment  Mr.  Magnet  discov- 
ered that  Marjorie  either  wasn't  to  be  seen,  or  if  she 
was  she  wasn't  to  be  isolated  by  any  device  he  could 
contrive,  before  the  unappeasable  return  of  Mr.  Pope. 

Mr.  Magnet  did  not  get  his  chance  therefore  until 
Lady  Petchworth's  little  gathering  at  Summerhay 
Park. 

Lady  Petchworth  was  Mrs.  Pope's  oldest  friend, 
and  one  of  those  brighter  influences  which  save  our 
English  country-side  from  lassitude.  She  had  been 
more  fortunate  than  Mrs.  Pope,  for  while  Mr.  Pope 
with  that  aptitude  for  disadvantage  natural  to  his 
temperament  had,  he  said,  been  tied  to  a  business  that 
never  gave  him  a  chance,  Lady  Petchworth's  husband 
had  been  a  reckless  investor  of  exceptional  good-luck. 
In  particular,  led  by  a  dream,  he  had  put  most  of  his 
money  into  a  series  of  nitrate  deposits  in  caves  in 
Saghalien  haunted  by  benevolent  penguins,  and  had 
been  rewarded  beyond  the  dreams  of  avarice.  His 
foresight  had  received  the  fitting  reward  of  a  knight- 
hood, and  Sir  Thomas,  after  restoring  the  Parish 
Church  at  Summerhay  in  a  costly  and  destructive 
manner,  spent  his  declining  years  in  an  enviable  con- 
tentment with  Lady  Petchworth  and  the  world  at 
large,  and  died  long  before  infirmity  made  him  really 
troublesome. 

Good  fortune  had  brought  out  Lady  Petchworth's 
social  aptitudes.  Summerhay  Park  was  everything 
that  a  clever  woman,  inspired  by  that  gardening 
literature  which  has  been  so  abundant  in  the  opening 
years  of  the  twentieth  century,  could  make  it.  It  had 


56  MARRIAGE 

rosaries  and  rock  gardens,  sundials  and  yew  hedges, 
pools  and  ponds,  lead  figures  and  stone  urns,  box 
borderings  and  wilderness  corners  and  hundreds  and 
hundreds  of  feet  of  prematurely-aged  red-brick  wall 
with  broad  herbaceous  borders ;  the  walks  had  prim- 
roses, primulas  and  cowslips  in  a  quite  disingenuous 
abundance,  and  in  spring  the  whole  extent  of  the  park 
was  gay,  here  with  thousands  of  this  sort  of  daffodil 
just  bursting  out  and  here  with  thousands  of  that  sort 
of  narcissus  just  past  its  prime,  and  every  patch 
ready  to  pass  itself  off  in  its  naturalized  way  as  the 
accidental  native  flower  of  the  field,  if  only  it  hadn't 
been  for  all  the  other  different  varieties  coming  on  or 
wilting-off  in  adjacent  patches.  .  .  . 

Her  garden  was  only  the  beginning  of  Lady 
Petchworth's  activities.  She  had  a  model  dairy,  and 
all  her  poultry  was  white,  and  so  far  as  she  was  able 
to  manage  it  she  made  Summerhay  a  model  village. 
She  overflowed  with  activities,  it  was  astonishing  in 
one  so  plump  and  blonde,  and  meeting  followed  meet- 
ing in  the  artistic  little  red-brick  and  green-stained 
timber  village  hall  she  had  erected.  Now  it  was  the 
National  Theatre  and  now  it  was  the  National 
Mourning;  now  it  was  the  Break  Up  of  the  Poor 
Law,  and  now  the  Majority  Report,  now  the  Moth- 
ers' Union,  and  now  Socialism,  and  now  Individual- 
ism, but  always  something  progressive  and  beneficial. 
She  did  her  best  to  revive  the  old  village  life,  and 
brought  her  very  considerable  powers  of  compulsion 
to  make  the  men  dance  in  simple  old  Morris  dances, 
dressed  up  in  costumes  they  secretly  abominated, 
and  to  induce  the  mothers  to  dress  their  children  in 
art-coloured  smocks  instead  of  the  prints  and  blue 
serge  frocks  they  preferred.  She  did  not  despair, 
she  said,  of  creating  a  spontaneous  peasant  art 
movement  in  the  district,  springing  from  the  people 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    57 

and  expressing  the  people,  but  so  far  it  had  been 
necessary  to  import  not  only  instructors  and  ma- 
terial, but  workers  to  keep  the  thing  going,  so  slug- 
gish had  the  spontaneity  of  our  English  countryside 
become. 

Her  little  gatherings  were  quite  distinctive  of  her. 
They  were  a  sort  of  garden  party  extending  from 
midday  to  six  or  seven;  there  would  be  a  nucleus  of 
house  guests,  and  the  highways  and  byeways  on 
every  hand  would  be  raided  to  supply  persons  and 
interests.  She  had  told  her  friend  to  "  bring  the 
girls  over  for  the  day,"  and  flung  an  invitation  to 
Mr.  Pope,  who  had  at  once  excused  himself  on  the 
score  of  his  ankle.  Mr.  Pope  was  one  of  those  men 
who  shun  social  gatherings — ostensibly  because  of  a 
sterling  simplicity  of  taste,  but  really  because  his 
intolerable  egotism  made  him  feel  slighted  and  ne- 
glected on  these  occasions.  He  told  his  wife  he 
would  be  far  happier  with  a  book  at  home,  exhorted 
her  not  to  be  late,  and  was  seen  composing  himself 
to  read  the  "  Vicar  of  Wakefield  " — whenever  they 
published  a  new  book  Mr.  Pope  pretended  to  read 
an  old  one — as  the  hired  waggonette  took  the  rest  of 
his  family — Theodore  very  unhappy  in  buff  silk  and 
a  wide  Stuart  collar — down  the  avenue. 

They  found  a  long  lunch  table  laid  on  the  lawn 
beneath  the  chestnuts,  and  in  full  view  of  the  pop- 
pies and  forget-me-nots  around  the  stone  obelisk,  a 
butler  and  three  men  servants  with  brass  buttons  and1 
red  and  white  striped  waistcoats  gave  dignity  to  the 
scene,  and  beyond,  on  the  terrace  amidst  abundance 
of  deckchairs,  cane  chairs,  rugs,  and  cushions,  a 
miscellaneous  and  increasing  company  seethed  under 
Lady  Petchworth's  plump  but  entertaining  hand. 
There  were,  of  course,  Mr.  Magnet,  and  his  friend 
Mr.  Wintersloan — Lady  Petchworth  had  been  given 


58  MARRIAGE 

to  understand  how  the  land  lay ;  and  there  was  Mr. 
Bunford  Paradise  the  musician,  who  was  doing  his 
best  to  teach  a  sullen  holiday  class  in  the  village 
schoolroom  to  sing  the  artless  old  folk  songs  of  Sur- 
rey again,  in  spite  of  the  invincible  persuasion  of 
everybody  in  the  class  that  the  songs  were  rather 
indelicate  and  extremely  silly;  there  were  the  Rev. 
Jopling  Baynes,  and  two  Cambridge  undergraduates 
in  flannels,  and  a  Doctor  something  or  other  from 
London.  There  was  also  the  Hon.  Charles  Muskett, 
Lord  Pottinger's  cousin  and  estate  agent,  in  tweeds 
and  very  helpful.  The  ladies  included  Mrs.  Raff, 
the  well-known  fashion  writer,  in  a  wonderful  cos- 
tume, the  anonymous  doctor's  wife,  three  or  four 
neighbouring  mothers  with  an  undistinguished 
daughter  or  so,  and  two  quiet-mannered  middle-aged 
ladies,  whose  names  Marjorie  could  not  catch,  and 
whom  Lady  Petchworth,  in  that  well-controlled 
voice  of  hers,  addressed  as  Kate  and  Julia,  and  seem- 
ed on  the  whole  disposed  to  treat  as  humorous. 
There  was  also  Fraulein  Schmidt  in  charge  of  Lady 
Petchworth's  three  tall  and  already  abundant  chil- 
dren, Prunella,  Prudence,  and  Mary,  and  a  young, 
newly-married  couple  of  cousins,  who  addressed  each 
other  in  soft  undertones  and  sat  apart.  These  were 
the  chief  items  that  became  distinctive  in  Marjorie's 
survey ;  but  there  were  a  number  of  other  people  who 
seemed  to  come  and  go,  split  up,  fuse,  change  their 
appearance  slightly,  and  behave  in  the  way  inade- 
quately apprehended  people  do  behave  on  these 
occasions. 

Marjorie  very  speedily  found  her  disposition  to 
take  a  detached  and  amused  view  of  the  entertain- 
ment in  conflict  with  more  urgent  demands.  From 
the  outset  Mr.  Magnet  loomed  upon  her — he  loomed 
nearer  and  nearer.  He  turned  his  eye  upon  her  as 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    59 

she  came  up  to  the  wealthy  expanse  of  Lady  Fetch- 
worth's  presence,  like  some  sort  of  obsolescent  iron- 
clad turning  a  dull-grey,  respectful,  loving  search- 
light upon  a  fugitive  torpedo  boat,  and  thereafter 
he  seemed  to  her  to  be  looking  at  her  without  inter- 
mission, relentlessly,  and  urging  himself  towards 
her.  She  wished  he  wouldn't.  She  hadn't  at  all 
thought  he  would  on  this  occasion. 

At  first  she  relied  upon  her  natural  powers  of 
evasion,  and  the  presence  of  a  large  company.  Then 
gradually  it  became  apparent  that  Lady  Petchworth 
and  her  mother,  yes — and  the  party  generally,  and 
the  gardens  and  the  weather  and  the  stars  in  their 
courses  were  of  a  mind  to  co-operate  in  giving  oppor- 
tunity for  Mr.  Magnet's  unmistakable  intentions. 

And  Marjorie  with  that  instability  of  her  sex 
which  has  been  a  theme  for  masculine  humour  in  all 
ages,  suddenly  and  with  an  extraordinary  violence 
didn't  want  to  make  up  her  mind  about  Mr.  Magnet. 
She  didn't  want  to  accept  him ;  and  as  distinctly  she 
didn't  want  to  refuse  him.  She  didn't  even  want  to 
be  thought  about  as  making  up  her  mind  about  him 
— which  was,  so  to  speak,  an  enlargement  of  her 
previous  indisposition.  She  didn't  even  want  to  seem 
to  avoid  him,  or  to  be  thinking  about  him,  or  aware 
of  his  existence. 

After  the  greeting  of  Lady  Petchworth  she  had 
succeeded  very  clumsily  in  not  seeing  Mr.  Magnet, 
and  had  addressed  herself  to  Mr.  Wintersloan,  who 
was  standing  a  little  apart,  looking  under  his  hand, 
with  one  eye  shut,  at  the  view  between  the  tree  stems 
towards  Buryhamstreet.  He  told  her  that  he 
thought  he  had  found  something  "  pooty "  that 
hadn't  been  done,  and  she  did  her  best  to  share  his 
artistic  interests  with  a  vivid  sense  of  Mr.  Magnet's 
tentative  incessant  approach  behind  her. 


60  MARRIAGE 

He  joined  them,  and  she  made  a  desperate  at- 
tempt to  entangle  Mr.  Wintersloan  in  a  three-cor- 
nered talk  in  vain.  He  turned  away  at  the  first 
possible  opportunity,  and  left  her  to  an  embarrassed 
and  eloquently  silent  tete-a-tete.  Mr.  Magnet's 
professional  wit  had  deserted  him.  "  It's  nice  to  see 
you  again,"  he  said  after  an  immense  interval. 
"  Shall  we  go  and  look  at  the  aviary  ?" 

"  I  hate  to  see  birds  in  cages,"  said  Marjorie, 
"  and  it's  frightfully  jolly  just  here.  Do  you  think 
Mr.  Wintersloan  will  paint  this?  He  does  paint, 
doesn't  he?" 

"  I  know  him  best  in  black  and  white,"  said  Mr. 
Magnet. 

Marjorie  embarked  on  entirely  insincere  praises 
of  Mr.  Wintersloan's  manner  and  personal  effect; 
Magnet  replied  tepidly,  with  an  air  of  reserving 
himself  to  grapple  with  the  first  conversational  op- 
portunity. 

"  It's  a  splendid  day  for  tennis,"  said  Marjorie. 
"  I  think  I  shall  play  tennis  all  the  afternoon." 

"  I  don't  play  well  enough  for  this  publicity." 

"  It's  glorious  exercise,"  said  Marjorie.  "  Almost 
as  good  as  dancing,"  and  she  decided  to  stick  to  that 
resolution.  "  I  never  lose  a  chance  of  tennis  if  I  can 
help  it." 

She  glanced  round  and  detected  a  widening  space 
between  themselves  and  the  next  adjacent  group. 

"  They're  looking  at  the  goldfish,"  she  said.  "  Let 
us  join  them." 

Everyone  moved  away  as  they  came  up  to  the 
little  round  pond,  but  then  Marjorie  had  luck,  and 
captured  Prunella,  and  got  her  to  hold  hands  and 
talk,  until  Fraulein  Schmidt  called  the  child  away. 
And  then  Marjorie  forced  Mr.  Magnet  to  introduce 
her  to  Mr.  Bunford  Paradise.  She  had  a  bright  idea 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    61 

of  sitting  between  Prunella  and  Mary  at  the  lunch 
table,  but  a  higher  providence  had  assigned  her  to 
a  seat  at  the  end  between  Julia  —  or  was  it  Kate?  — 
and  Mr.  Magnet.  However,  one  of  the  undergrad- 
uates was  opposite,  and  she  saved  herself  from 
undertones  by  talking  across  to  him  boldly  about 
Newnham,  though  she  hadn't  an  idea  of  his  name  or 
college.  From  that  she  came  to  tennis.  To  her 
inflamed  imagination  he  behaved  as  if  she  was  under 
a  Taboo,  but  she  was  desperate,  and  had  pledged 
him  and  his  friend  to  a  foursome  before  the  meal  was 
over. 

"  Don't  you  play  ?"  said  the  undergraduate  to 
Mr.  Magnet. 

"  Very  little,"  said  Mr.  Magnet.    "  Very  little—" 

At  the  end  of  an  hour  she  was  conspicuously  and 
publicly  shepherded  from  the  tennis  court  by  Mrs. 
Pope. 

"  Other  people  want  to  play,"  said  her  mother  in 
a  clear  little  undertone. 

Mr.  Magnet  fielded  her  neatly  as  she  came  off  the 
court. 

"  You  play  tennis  like  —  a  wild  bird,"  he  said, 
taking  possession  of  her. 

Only  Marjorie's  entire  freedom  from  Irish  blood 
saved  him  from  a  vindictive  repartee. 


"  Shall  we  go  and  look  at  the  aviary?"  said  Mr. 
Magnet,  reverting  to  a  favourite  idea  of  his,  and 
then  remembered  she  did  not  like  to  see  caged  birds. 

"  Perhaps  we  might  see  the  Water  Garden?"  he 
said.  "  The  Water  Garden  is  really  very  delightful 
indeed  —  anyhow.  You  ought  to  see  that." 

On  the  spur  of  the  moment,  Marjorie  could  think 
of  no  objection  to  the  JVater  Garden,  and  he  led 
her  off. 


62  MARRIAGE 

"  I  often  think  of  that  jolly  walk  we  had  last 
summer,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  "  and  how  you  talked 
about  your  work  at  Oxbridge." 

Marjorie  fell  into  a  sudden  rapture  of  admira- 
tion for  a  butterfly. 

Twice  more  was  Mr.  Magnet  baffled,  and  then 
they  came  to  the  little  pool  of  water  lilies  with  its 
miniature  cascade  of  escape  at  the  head  and  source  of 
the  Water  Garden.  "One  of  Lady  Petchworth's 
great  successes,"  said  Mr.  Magnet. 

"  I  suppose  the  lotus  is  like  the  water-lily,"  said 
Marjorie,  with  no  hope  of  staving  off  the  inevit- 
able  

She  stood  very  still  by  the  little  pool,  and  in 
spite  of  her  pensive  regard  of  the  floating  blossoms, 
stiffly  and  intensely  aware  of  his  relentless  regard. 

"  Marjorie,"  came  his  voice  at  last,  strangely 
softened.  "  There  is  something  I  want  to  say  to 
you." 

She  made  no  reply. 

"  Ever  since  we  met  last  summer " 

A  clear  cold  little  resolution  not  to  stand  this, 
had  established  itself  in  Marjorie's  mind.  If  she 
must  decide,  she  would  decide.  He  had  brought  it 
upon  himself. 

"  Marjorie,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  "  I  love  you." 

She  lifted  a  clear  unhesitating  eye  to  his  face. 
"  I'm  sorry,  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  said. 

"  I  wanted  to  ask  you  to  marry  me,"  he  said. 

"  I'm  sorry,  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  repeated. 

They  looked  at  one  another.  She  felt  a  sort  of 
scared  exultation  at  having  done  it;  her  mother 
might  say  what  she  liked. 

"  I  love  you  very  much,"  he  said,  at  a  loss. 

"  I'm  sorry,"  she  repeated  obstinately. 

"  I  thought  you  cared  for  me  a  little." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    63 

She  left  that  unanswered.  She  had  a  curious 
feeling  that  there  was  no  getting  away  from  this 
splashing,  babbling  pool,  that  she  was  fixed  there 
until  Mr.  Magnet  chose  to  release  her,  and  that  he 
didn't  mean  to  release  her  yet.  In  which  case  she 
would  go  on  refusing. 

"  I'm  disappointed,"  he  said. 

Marjorie  could  only  think  that  she  was  sorry 
again,  but  as  she  had  already  said  that  three  times, 
she  remained  awkwardly  silent. 

"  Is  it  because "  he  began  and  stopped. 

"  It  isn't  because  of  anything.  Please  let's  go 
back  to  the  others,  Mr.  Magnet.  I'm  sorry  if  I'm 
disappointing." 

And  by  a  great  effort  she  turned  about. 

Mr.  Magnet  remained  regarding  her — I  can  only 
compare  it  to  the  searching  preliminary  gaze  of  an 
artistic  photographer.  For  a  crucial  minute  in  his 
life  Marjorie  hated  him.  "  I  don't  understand,"  he 
said  at  last. 

Then  with  a  sort  of  naturalness  that  ought  to 
have  touched  her  he  said:  "Is  it  possible,  Marjorie 
— that  I  might  hope? — that  I  have  been  inoppor- 
tune?" 

She  answered  at  once  with  absolute  conviction. 

"I  don't  think  so,  Mr.  Magnet." 

"  I'm  sorry,"  he  said,  "  to  have  bothered  you." 

"  Pm  sorry,"  said  Marjorie. 

A  long  silence  followed. 

"  I'm  sorry  too,"  he  said. 

They  said  no  more,  but  began  to  retrace  their 
steps.  It  was  over.  Abruptly,  Mr.  Magnet's  bear- 
ing had  become  despondent — conspicuously  despond- 
ent. "  I  had  hoped,"  he  said,  and  sighed. 

With  a  thrill,  of  horror  Marjorie  perceived  he 
meant  to  look  rejected,  let  every  one  see  he  had  been 
rejected — after  encouragement. 


64  MARRIAGE 

What  would1  they  think?  How  would  they  look? 
What  conceivably  might  they  not  say?  Something 
of  the  importance  of  the  thing  she  had  done,  became 
manifest  to  her.  She  felt  first  intimations  of  regret. 
They  would  all  be  watching,  Mother,  Daffy,  Lady 
Petchworth.  She  would  reappear  with  this  victim 
visibly  suffering  beside  her.  What  could  she  say  to 
straighten  his  back  and  lift  his  chin?  She  could 
think  of  nothing.  Ahead  at  the  end  of  the  shaded 
path  she  could  see  the  copious  white  form,  the  agi- 
tated fair  wig  and  red  sunshade  of  Lady  Petch- 
worth— — 

§4 

Mrs.  Pope's  eye  was  relentless;  nothing  seemed 
hidden  from  it;  nothing  indeed  was  hidden  from  it; 
Mr.  Magnet's  back  was  diagrammatic.  Marjorie 
was  a  little  flushed  and  bright-eyed,  and  professed 
herself  eager,  with  an  unnatural  enthusiasm,  to  play 
golf-croquet.  It  was  eloquently  significant  that  Mr. 
Magnet  did  not  share  her  eagerness,  declined  to  play, 
and  yet  when  she  had  started  with  the  Rev.  Jopling 
Baynes  as  partner,  stood  regarding  the  game  with  a 
sort  of  tender  melancholy  from  the  shade  of  the  big 
chestnut-tree. 

Mrs.  Pope  joined  him  unobtrusively. 

"  You're  not  playing,  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  re- 
marked. 

"  I'm  a  looker-on,  this  time,"  he  said  with  a  sigh. 

"Marjorie's  winning,  I  think,"  said  Mrs.  Pope. 

He  made  no  answer  for  some  seconds. 

"  She  looks  so  charming  in  that  blue  dress,"  he 
remarked  at  last,  and  sighed  from  the  lowest  deeps. 

"  That  bird's-egg  blue  suits  her,"  said  Mrs.  Pope, 
ignoring  the  sigh.  "  She's  clever  in  her  girlish  way, 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   65 

she  chooses  all  her  own  dresses, — colours,  material, 
everything." 

(And  also,  though  Mrs.  Pope  had  not  remarked 
it,  she  concealed  her  bills.) 

There  came  a  still  longer  interval,  which  Mrs. 
Pope  ended  with  the  slightest  of  shivers.  She  per- 
ceived Mr.  Magnet  was  heavy  for  sympathy  and 
ripe  to  confide.  "  I  think,"  she  said,  "  it's  a  little 
cool  here.  Shall  we  walk  to  the  Water  Garden,  and 
see  if  there  are  any  white  lilies?" 

"  There  are,"  said  Mr.  Magnet  sorrowfully, 
"  and  they  are  very  Beautiful — quite  beautiful." 

He  turned  to  the  path  along  which  he  had  so 
recently  led  Marjorie. 

He  glanced  back  as  they  went  along  between 
Lady  Petchworth's  herbaceous  border  and  the  poppy 
beds.  "  She's  so  full  of  life,"  he  said,  with  a  sigh 
in  his  voice. 

Mrs.  Pope  knew  she  must  keep  silent. 

"  I  asked  her  to  marry  me  this  afternoon,"  Mr. 
Magnet  blurted  out.  "  I  couldn't  help  it." 

Mrs.  Pope  made  her  silence  very  impressive. 

"  I  know  I  ought  not  to  have  done  so  without 
consulting  you  " — he  went  on  lamely ;  "  I'm  very 
much  in  love  with  her.  It's It's  done  no  harm." 

Mrs.  Pope's  voice  was  soft  and  low.  "I  had  no 
idea,  Mr.  Magnet.  .  .  .  You  know  she  is  very 
young.  Twenty.  A  mother " 

"  I  know,"  saio?  Magnet.  "  I  can  quite  under- 
stand. But  I've  done  no  harm.  She  refused  me.  I 
shall  go  away  to-morrow.  Go  right  away  for  ever. 
.  .  .  I'm  sorry." 

Another  long  silence. 

"  To  me,  of  course,  she's  just  a  child,"  Mrs.  Pope 
said  at  last.  "  She  is  only  a  child,  Mr.  Magnet.  She 


66  MARRIAGE 

could  have  had  no  idea  that  anything  of  the  sort  was 
in  your  mind " 

Her  words  floated  away  into  the  stillness. 

For  a  time  they  said  no  more.  The  lilies  came 
into  sight,  dreaming  under  a  rich  green  shade  on  a 
limpid  pool  of  brown  water,  water  that  slept  and 
brimmed  over  as  it  were,  unconsciously  into  a  cool 
splash  and  ripple  of  escape.  "  How  beautiful !" 
cried  Mrs.  Pope,  for  a  moment  genuine. 

"  I  spoke  to  her  here,"  said  Mr.  Magnet. 

The  fountains  of  his  confidence  were  unloosed. 

"Now  I've  spoken  to  you  about  it,  Mrs.  Pope," 
he  said,  "  I  can  tell  you  just  how  I — oh,  it's  the  only 
word — adore  her.  She  seems  so  sweet  and  easy — so 
graceful " 

Mrs.  Pope  turned  on  him  abruptly,  and  grasped 
his  hands ;  she  was  deeply  moved.  "  I  can't  tell 
you,"  she  said,  "  what  it  means  to  a  mother  to  hear 
such  things " 

Words  failed  her,  and  for  some  moments  they 
engaged  in  a  mutual  pressure. 

"  Ah !"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  and  had  a  queer  wish 
it  was  the  mother  he  had  to  deal  with. 

"  Are  you  sure,  Mr.  Magnet,"  Mrs.  Pope  went 
on  as  their  emotions  subsided,  "  that  she  really  meant 
what  she  said?  Girls  are  very  strange  crea- 
tures  " 

"  She  seems  so  clear  and  positive." 

"  Her  manner  is  always  clear  and  positive." 

"Yes.    I  know." 

"  I  know  she  has  cared  for  you." 

"No!" 

"  A  mother  sees.  When  your  name  used  to  be 

mentioned .  But  these  are  not  things  to  talk 

about.  There  is  something — somothing  sacred " 

"  Yes,"  he  said.  "  Yes.  Only Of  course, 

one  thing " 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    67 

Mrs.  Pope  seemed  lost  in  the  contemplation  of 
water-lilies. 

"  I  wondered,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  and  paused 
again. 

Then,  almost  breathlessly,  "  I  wondered  if  there 
should  be  perhaps — some  one  else?" 

She  shook  her  head  slowly.  "  I  should  know,"  she 
said. 

"  Are  you  sure  ?" 

"  I  know  I  should  know." 

"Perhaps  recently?" 

"  I  am  sure  I  should  know.  A  mother's  in- 
tuition  " 

Memories  possessed  her  for  awhile.  "  A  girl  of 
twenty  is  a  mass  of  contradictions.  I  can  remember 
myself  as  if  it  was  yesterday.  Often  one  says  no,  or 
yes — out  of  sheer  nervousness.  ...  I  am  sure 
there  is  no  other  attachment " 

It  occurred  to  her  that  she  had  said  enough. 
"What  a  dignity  that  old  gold-fish  has!"  she  re- 
marked. "  He  waves  his  tail — as  if  he  were  a  beadle 
waving  little  boys  out  of  church." 

§5 

Mrs.  Pope  astonished  Marjorie  by  saying  nothing 
about  the  all  too  obvious  event  of  the  day  for  some 
time,  but  her  manner  to  her  second  daughter  on  their 
way  home  was  strangely  gentle.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
realized  for  the  first  time  that  regret  and  unhappi- 
ness  might  come  into  that  young  life.  After  supper, 
however,  she  spoke.  They  had  all  gone  out  just 
before  the  children  went  to  bed  to  look  for  the  new 
moon;  Daffy  was  showing  the  pseudo-twins  the  old 
moon  in  the  new  moon's  arms,  and  Marjorie  found 
herself  standing  by  her  mother's  side.  "  I  hope 


68  MARRIAGE 

dear,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  "  that  it's  all  for  the  best— 
and  that  j^ou've  done  wisely,  dear." 

Marjorie  was  astonished  and  moved  by  her 
mother's  tone. 

"  It's  so  difficult  to  know  what  is  for  the  best," 
Mrs.  Pope  went  on. 

"  I  had  to  do — as  I  did,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  I  only  hope  you  may  never  find  you  have  made 
a  Great  Mistake,  dear.  He  cares  for  you  very,  very 
much." 

"  Oh !  we  see  it  now !"  cried  Rom,  "  we  see  it  now ! 
Mummy,  have  you  seen  it?  Like  a  little  old  round 
ghost  being  nursed!" 

When  Marjorie  said  "  Good-night,"  Mrs.  Pope 
kissed  her  with  an  unaccustomed  effusion. 

It  occurred  to  Mar j  orie  that  after  all  her  mother 
had  no  selfish  end  to  serve  in  this  affair. 

§6 

The  idea  that  perhaps  after  all  she  had  made  a 
Great  Mistake,  the  Mistake  of  her  Life  it  might  be, 
was  quite  firmly  established  in  its  place  among  all  the 
other  ideas  in  Marjorie's  mind  by  the  time  she  had 
dressed  next  morning.  Subsequent  events  greatly 
intensified  this  persuasion.  A  pair  of  new  stockings 
she  had  trusted  sprang  a  bad  hole  as  she  put  them 
on.  She  found  two  unmistakable  bills  from  Ox- 
bridge beside  her  plate,  and  her  father  was  "  horrid  " 
at  breakfast. 

Her  father,  it  appeared,  had  bought  the  ordinary 
shares  of  a  Cuban  railway  very  extensively,  on  the 
distinct  understanding  that  they  would  improve.  In 
a  decent  universe,  with  a  proper  respect  for  meritor- 
ious gentlemen,  these  shares  would  have  improved 
accordingly,  but  the  weather  had  seen  fit  to  shatter 
the  wisdom  of  Mr.  Pope  altogether.  The  sugar  crop 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   69 

had  collapsed,  the  bears  were  at  work,  and  every 
morning  now  saw  his  nominal  capital  diminished  by 
a  dozen  pounds  or  so.  I  do  not  know  what  Mr.  Pope 
would  have  done  if  he  had  not  had  his  family  to  help 
him  bear  his  trouble.  As  it  was  he  relieved  his  ten- 
sion by  sending  Theodore  from  the  table  for  drop- 
ping a  knife,  telling  Rom  when  she  turned  the  plate 
round  to  pick  the  largest  banana  that  she  hadn't 
the  self-respect  of  a  child  of  five,  and  remarking 
sharply  from  behind  the  Times  when  Daffy  asked 
Marjorie  if  she  was  going  to  sketch:  "  Oh,  for  God's 
sake  don't  whisper!"  Then  when  Mrs.  Pope  came 
round  the  table  and  tried  to  take  his  coffee  cup  softly 
to  refill  it  without  troubling  him,  he  snatched  at  it, 
wrenched  it  roughly  out  of  her  hand,  and  said  with 
his  mouth  full,  and  strangely  in  the  manner  of  a 
snarling  beast :  "  No'  ready  yet.  Half  f oo'." 

Marjorie  wanted  to  know  why  every  one  didn't 
get  up  and  leave  the  room.  She  glanced  at  her 
mother  and  came  near  to  speaking. 

And  very  soon  she  would  have  to  come  home  and 
live  in  the  midst  of  this  again — indefinitely ! 

After  breakfast  she  went  to  the  tumbledown  sum- 
merhouse  by  the  duckpond,  and  contemplated  the  bills 
she  had  not  dared  to  open  at  table.  One  was  boots, 
nearly  three  pounds,  the  other  books,  over  seven.  "  I 
know  that's  wrong,"  said  Marjorie,  and  rested  her 
chin  on  her  hand,  knitted  her  brows  and  tried  to 
remember  the  details  of  orders  and  deliveries.  .  .  . 

Marjorie  had  fallen  into  the  net  prepared  for 
our  sons  and  daughters  by  the  delicate  modesty  of 
the  Oxbridge  authorities  in  money  matters,  and  she 
was,  for  her  circumstances,  rather  heavily  in  debt. 
But  I  must  admit  that  in  Marjorie's  nature  the  Ox- 
bridge conditions  had  found  am  eager  and  adven- 
turous streak  that  rendered  her  particularly  apt  to 
these  temptations. 


70  MARRIAGE 

I  doubt  if  reticence  is  really  a  virtue  in  a  teacher. 
But  this  is  a  fearful  world,  and  the  majority  of  those 
who  instruct  our  youth  have  the  painful  sensitiveness 
of  the  cloistered  soul  to  this  spirit  of  terror  in  things. 
The  young  need  particularly  to  be  told  truthfully 
and  fully  all  we  know  of  three  foundamental  things : 
the  first  of  which  is  God,  the  next  their  duty  towards 
their  neighbours  in  the  matter  of  work  and  money, 
and  the  third  Sex.  These  things,  and  the  adequate 
why  of  them,  and  some  sort  of  adequate  how,  make 
all  that  matters  in  education.  But  all  three  are  ob- 
scure and  deeply  moving  topics,  topics  for  which  the 
donnish  mind  has  a  kind  of  special  ineptitude,  and 
which  it  evades  with  the  utmost  skill  and  delicacy. 
The  middle  part  of  this  evaded  triad  was  now  being 
taken  up  in  Marjorie's  case  by  the  Oxbridge  trades- 
people. 

The  Oxbridge  shopkeeper  is  peculiar  among  shop- 
keepers in  the  fact  that  he  has  to  do  very  largely 
with  shy  and  immature  customers  with  an  extreme 
and  distinctive  ignorance  of  most  commercial  things. 
They  are  for  the  most  part  short  of  cash,  but  with 
vague  and  often  large  probabilities  of  credit  behind 
them,  for  most  people,  even  quite  straitened  people, 
will  pull  their  sons  and  daughters  out  of  altogether 
unreasonable  debts  at  the  end  of  their  university 
career;  and  so  the  Oxbridge  shopkeeper  becomes  a 
sort  of  propagandist  of  the  charms  and  advantages 
of  insolvency.  Alone  among  retailers  he  dislikes  the 
sight  of  cash,  declines  it,  affects  to  regard  it  as  a 
coarse  ignorant  truncation  of  a  budding  relation- 
ship, begs  to  be  permitted  to  wait.  So  the  youngster 
just  up  from  home  discovers  that  money  may  stay 
in  the  pocket,  be  used  for  cab  and  train  fares  and 
light  refreshments;  all  the  rest  may  be  had  for  the 
asking.  Marjorie,  with  her  innate  hunger  for  good 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   71 

fine  things,  with  her  quite  insufficient  pocket-money, 
and  the  irregular  habits  of  expenditure  a  spasmodic- 
ally financed,  hard-up  home  is  apt  to  engender,  fell 
very  readily  into  this  new,  delightful  custom  of  hav- 
ing it  put  down  (whatever  it  happened  to  be).  She 
had  all  sorts  of  things  put  down.  She  and  the  elder 
Carmel  girl  used  to  go  shopping  together,  having 
things  put  down.  She  brightened  her  rooms  with 
colour-prints  and  engravings,  got  herself  pretty  and 
becoming  clothes,  acquired  a  fitted  dressing-bag 
already  noted  in  this  story,  and  one  or  two  other 
trifles  of  the  sort,  revised  her  foot-wear,  created  a 
very  nice  little  bookshelf,  and  although  at  times  she 
felt  a  little  astonished  and  scared  at  herself,  reso- 
lutely refused  to  estimate  the  total  of  accumulated 
debt  she  had  attained.  Indeed  until  the  bills  came  in 
it  was  impossible  to  do  that,  because,  following  the 
splendid  example  of  the  Carmel  girl,  she  hadn't  even 
inquired  the  price  of  quite  a  number  of  things.  .  .  . 

She  didn't  dare  think  now  of  the  total.  She  lied 
even  to  herself  about  that.  She  had  fixed  on  fifty 
pounds  as  the  unendurable  maximum.  "  It  is  less 
than  fifty  pounds,"  she  said,  and  added:  "  must  be." 
But  something  in  her  below  the  threshold  of  con- 
sciousness knew  that  it  was  more. 

And  now  she  was  in  her  third  year,  and  the  Ox- 
bridge tradesman,  generally  satisfied  with  the 
dimensions  of  her  account,  and  no  longer  anxious  to 
see  it  grow,  was  displaying  the  less  obsequious  side  of 
his  character.  He  wrote  remarks  at  the  bottom  of 
his  account,  remarks  about  settlement,  about  having 
a  bill  to  meet,  about  having  something  to  go  on  with. 
He  asked  her  to  give  the  matter  her  "  early  atten- 
tion." She  had  a  disagreeable  persuasion  that  if  she 
wanted  many  more  things  anywhere  she  would  have 
to  pay  ready  money  for  them.  She  was  particularly 


72  MARRIAGE 

short  of  stockings.  She  had  overlooked  stockings 
recently. 

Daffy,  unfortunately,  was  also  short  of  stockings. 

And  now,  back  with  her  family  again,  everything 
conspired  to  remind  Marjorie  of  the  old  stringent 
habits  from  which  she  had  had  so  delightful  an 
interlude.  She  saw  Daffy  eye  her  possessions,  reflect. 
This  morning  something  of  the  awfulness  of  her 
position  came  to  her.  .  . 

At  Oxbridge  she  had  made  rather  a  joke  of  her 
debts. 

"  I'd  swear  I  haven't  had  three  pairs  of  house 
shoes,"  said  Marjorie.  "  But  what  can  one  do?" 

And  about  the  whole  position  the  question  was, 
"  what  can  one  do  ?" 

She  proceeded  with  tense  nervous  movements  to 
tear  these  two  distasteful  demands  into  very  minute 
pieces.  Then  she  collected  them  all  together  in  the 
hollow  of  her  hand,  and  buried  them  in  the  loose 
mould  in  a  corner  of  the  summer-house. 

"  Madge,"  said  Theodore,  appearing  in  the  sun- 
shine of  the  doorway.  "  Aunt  Plessington's  coming ! 
She's  sent  a  wire.  Someone's  got  to  meet  her  by 
the  twelve-forty  train." 

§7 

Aunt  Plessington's  descent  was  due  to  her  sudden 
discovery  that  Buryhamstreet  was  in  close  proximity 
to  Summerhay  Park,  indeed  only  three  miles  away. 
She  had  promised  a  lecture  on  her  movement  for  Lady 
Petchworth's  village  room  in  Summerhay,  and  she 
found  that  with  a  slight  readjustment  of  dates  she 
could  combine  this  engagement  with  her  promised 
visit  to  her  husband's  sister,  and  an  evening  or  so  of 
influence  for  her  little  Madge.  So  she  had  sent  Hu- 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    73 

bert  to  telegraph  at  once,  and  "  here,"  she  said 
triumphantly  on  the  platform,  after  a  hard  kiss  at 
Marjorie's  cheek,  "  we  are  again.' 

There,  at  any  rate,  she  was,  and  Uncle  Hubert 
was  up  the  platform  seeing  after  the  luggage,  in  his 
small  anxious  way. 

Aunt  Plessington  was  a  tall,  lean  woman,  with  firm 
features,  a  high  colour  and  a  bright  eye,  who  wore 
hats  to  show  she  despised  them,  and  carefully 
dishevelled  hair.  Her  dress  was  always  good,  but 
extremely  old  and  grubby,  and  she  commanded  respect 
chiefly  by  her  voice.  Her  voice  was  the  true  govern- 
ing-class voice,  a  strangulated  contralto,  abundant 
and  authoritative;  it  made  everything  she  said  clear 
and  important,  so  that  if  she  said  it  was  a  fine  morn- 
ing it  was  like  leaded  print  in  the  Times,  and  she  had 
over  her  large  front  teeth  lips  that  closed  quietly 
and  with  a  slight  effort  after  her  speeches,  as  if  the 
words  she  spoke  tasted  well  and  left  a  peaceful, 
secure  sensation  in  the  mouth. 

Uncle  Hubert  was  a  less  distinguished  figure,  and 
just  a  little  reminiscent  of  the  small  attached  hus- 
bands one  finds  among  the  lower  Crustacea:  he  was 
much  shorter  and  rounder  than  his  wife,  and  if  he 
had  been  left  to  himself,  he  would  probably  have  been 
comfortably  fat  in  his  quiet  little  way.  But  Aunt 
Plessington  had  made  him  a  Haigite,  which  is  one  of 
the  fiercer  kinds  of  hygienist,  just  in  the  nick  of  time. 
He  had  round  shoulders,  a  large  nose,  and  glasses 
that  made  him  look  astonished — and  she  said  he  had 
a  great  gift  for  practical  things,  and  made  him  see 
after  everything  in  that  line  while  she  did  the  lec- 
turing. His  directions  to  the  porter  finished,  he  came 
up  to  his  niece.  "Hello,  Marjorie!"  he  said,  in  a 
peculiar  voice  that  sounded  as  though  his  mouth  was 


74  MARRIAGE 

full  (though  of  course,  poor  dear,  it  wasn't), 
"  how's  the  First  Class?" 

"  A  second's  good  enough  for  me,  Uncle  Hubert," 
said  Marjorie,  and  asked  if  they  would  rather  walk 
or  go  in  the  donkey  cart,  which  was  waiting  outside 
with  Daffy.  Aunt  Plessington,  with  an  air  of  great 
bonhomie  said  she'd  ride  in  the  donkey  cart,  and  they 
did.  But  no  pseudo-twins  or  Theodore  came  to  meet 
this  arrival,  as  both  uncle  and  aunt  had  a  way  of 
asking  how  the  lessons  were  getting  on  that  they 
found  extremely  disagreeable.  Also,  their  aunt  meas- 
ured them,  and  incited  them  with  loud  encouraging 
noises  to  grow  one  against  the  other  in  an  urgent, 
disturbing  fashion. 

Aunt  Plessington's  being  was  consumed  by 
thoughts  of  getting  on.  She  was  like  Bernard  Shaw's 
life  force,  and  she  really  did  not  seem  to  think  there 
was  anything  in  existence  but  shoving.  She  had  no 
idea  what  a  lark  life  can  be,  and  occasionally  how 
beautiful  it  can  be  when  you  do  not  shove,  if  only, 
which  becomes  increasingly  hard  each  year,  you  can 
get  away  from  the  shovers.  She  was  one  of  an  ener- 
getic family  of  eight  sisters  who  had  maintained 
themselves  against  a  mutual  pressure  by  the  use  of 
their  elbows  from  the  cradle.  They  had  all  married 
against  each  other,  all  sorts  of  people ;  two  had  driv- 
en their  husbands  into  bishoprics  and  made  quite 
typical  bishop's  wives,  one  got  a  leading  barrister,  one 
a  high  war-office  official,  and  one  a  rich  Jew,  and 
Aunt  Plessington,  after  spending  some  years  in  just 
missing  a  rich  and  only  slightly  demented  baronet, 
had  pounced — it's  the  only  word  for  it — on  Uncle 
Hubert.  "  A  woman  is  nothing  without  a  husband," 
she  said,  and  took  him.  He  was  a  fairly  comfortable 
Oxford  don  in  his  furtive  way,  and  bringing  him  out 
and  using  him  as  a  basis,  she  specialized  in  intellect- 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    75 

ual  philanthropy  and  evolved  her  Movement.  It 
was  quite  remarkable  how  rapidly  she  overhauled 
her  sisters  again. 

What  the  Movement  was,  varied  considerably 
from  time  to  time,  but  it  was  always  aggressively 
beneficial  towards  the  lower  strata  of  the  com- 
munity. Among  its  central  ideas  was  her  belief  that 
these  lower  strata  can  no  more  be  trusted  to  eat  than 
they  can  to  drink,  and  that  the  licensing  monopoly 
which  has  made  the  poor  man's  beer  thick,  lukewarm 
and  discreditable,  and  so  greatly  minimized  its 
consumption,  should  be  extended  to  the  solid  side  of 
his  dietary.  She  wanted  to  place  considerable  re- 
strictions upon  the  sale  of  all  sorts  of  meat,  upon 
groceries  and  the  less  hygienic  and  more  palatable 
forms  of  bread  (which  do  not  sufficiently  stimulate 
the  coatings  of  the  stomach),  to  increase  the  present 
difficulties  in  the  way  of  tobacco  purchasers,  and  to 
put  an  end  to  that  wanton  and  deleterious  con- 
sumption of  sweets  which  has  so  bad  an  effect  upon 
the  enamel  of  the  teeth  of  the  younger  generation. 
Closely  interwoven  with  these  proposals  was  an 
adoption  of  the  principle  of  the  East  Purblow  Ex- 
periment, the  principle  of  Payment  in  Kind.  She  was 
quite  in  agreement  with  Mr.  Pope  that  poor  people, 
when  they  had  money,  frittered  it  away,  and  so  she 
proposed  very  extensive  changes  in  the  Truck  Act, 
which  could  enable  employers,  under  suitable  safe- 
guards, and  with  the  advice  of  a  small  body  of 
spinster  inspectors,  to  supply  hygienic  housing, 
approved  clothing  of  moral  and  wholesome  sort, 
various  forms  of  insurance,  edifying  rations,  cuisine, 
medical  aid  and  educational  facilities  as  circum- 
stances seemed  to  justify,  in  lieu  of  the  wages  the 
employees  handled  so  ill.  .  .  . 


76  MARRIAGE 

As  no  people  in  England  will  ever  admit  they 
belong  to  the  lower  strata  of  society,  Aunt  Plessing- 
ton's  Movement  attracted  adherents  from  every 
class  in  the  community. 

She  now,  as  they  drove  slowly  to  the  vicarage, 
recounted  to  Marjorie — she  had  the  utmost  con- 
tempt for  Daffy  because  of  her  irregular  teeth  and 
a  general  lack  of  progressive  activity — the  steady 
growth  of  the  Movement,  and  the  increasing  respect 
shown  for  her  and  Hubert  in  the  world  of  politico- 
social  reform.  Some  of  the  meetings  she  had  ad- 
dressed had  been  quite  full,  various  people  had  made 
various  remarks  about  her,  hostile  for  the  most  part 
and  yet  insidiously  flattering,  and  everybody  seemed 
quite  glad  to  come  to  the  little  dinners  she  gave  in 
order,  she  said,  to  gather  social  support  for  her  re- 
forms. She  had  been  staying  with  the  Mastersteins, 
who  were  keenly  interested,  and  after  she  had  pol- 
ished off  Lady  Petchworth  she  was  to  visit  Lady 
Rosenbaum.  It  was  all  going  on  swimmingly,  these 
newer  English  gentry  were  eager  to  learn  all  she  had 
to  teach  in  the  art  of  breaking  in  the  Anglo-Saxon 
villagers,  and  now,  how  was  Marjorie  going  on,  and 
what  was  she  going  to  do  in  the  world? 

Marjorie  said  she  was  working  for  her  final. 

"  And  what  then  ?"  asked  Aunt  Plessington. 

"  Not  very  clear,  Aunt,  yet." 

"  Looking  around  for  something  to  take  up  ?" 

"  Yes,  Aunt." 

"  Well,  you've  time  yet.  And  it's  just  as  well  to 
see  how  the  land  lies  before  you  begin.  It  saves  go- 
ing back.  You'll  have  to  come  up  to  London  with 
me  for  a  little  while,  and  see  things,  and  be  seen  a 
little." 

"  I  should  love  to." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    77 

"  I'll  give  you  a  good  time,"  said  Aunt  Plessing- 
ton,  nodding  promisingly.  "  Theodore  getting  on 
in  school?" 

"  He's  had  his  remove." 

"  And  how's  Sydney  getting  on  with  the  music  ?" 

"  Excellently." 

"  And  Rom.    Rom  getting  on  ?" 

Marjorie   indicated   a   more   restrained   success. 

"  And  what's  Daffy  doing?" 

"  Oh !  get  on !"  said  Daffy  and  suddenly  whacked 
the  donkey  rather  hard.    I  beg  your  pardon,  Aunt?" 

"  I  asked  what  you  were  up  to,  Daffy  ?" 

"  Dusting,  Aunt — and  the  virtues,"  said  Daffy. 

"  You  ought  to  find  something  better  than  that." 

"  Father  tells  me  a  lot  about  the  East  Purblow 
Experiment,"  said  Daffy  after  a  perceptible  interval. 

"  Ah !"  cried  Aunt  Plessington  with  a  loud  en- 
couraging note,  but  evidently  making  the  best  of  it, 
"  that's  better.  Sociological  observation." 

"  Yes,  Aunt,"  said  Daffy,  and  negotiated  a  corner 
with  exceptional  care. 

§8 

Mrs.  Pope,  who  had  an  instinctive  disposition  to 
pad  when  Aunt  Plessington  was  about,  had  secured 
the  presence  at  lunch  of  Mr.  Magnet  (who  was  after 
all  staying  on  in  Buryhamstreet)  and  the  Rev.  Jop- 
ling  Baynes.  Aunt  Plessington  liked  to  meet  the 
clergy,  and  would  always  if  she  could  win  them  over 
to  an  interest  in  the  Movement.  She  opened  the 
meal  with  a  brisk  attack  upon  him.  "  Come,  Mr. 
Baynes,"  she  said,  "what  do  your  people  eat  here? 
Hubert  and  I  are  making  a  study  of  the  gluttonous 
side  of  village  life,  and  we  find  that  no  one  knows  so 
much  of  that  as  the  vicar — not  even  the  doctor."  ^  < 


78  MARRIAGE 

The  Reverend  Jopling  Baynes  was  a  clergyman 
of  the  evasive  type  with  a  quite  distinguished  voice. 
He  pursed  his  lips  and  made  his  eyes  round.  "  Well, 
Mrs.  Plessington,"  he  said  and  fingered  his  glass, 
"  it's  the  usual  dietary.  The  usual  dietary." 

"  Too  much  and  too  rich,  badly  cooked  and 
eaten  too  fast,"  said  Aunt  Plessington.  "  And  what 
do  you  think  is  the  remedy?" 

"  We  make  an  Effort,"  said  the  Rev.  Jopling 
Baynes,  "  we  make  an  Effort.  A  Hint  here,  a  Word 
there." 

"  Nothing  organized?" 

"  No,"  said  the  Rev.  Jopling  Baynes,  and  shook 
his  head  with  a  kind  of  resignation. 

"  We  are  going  to  alter  all  that,"  said  Aunt  Ples- 
sington briskly,  and  went  on  to  expound  the  Move- 
ment and  the  diverse  way  in  which  it  might  be  pos- 
sible to  control  and  improve  the  domestic  expendi- 
ture of  the  working  classes. 

The  Rev.  Jopling  Baynes  listened  sympathetical- 
ly across  the  table  and  tried  to  satisfy  a  healthy 
appetite  with  as  abstemious  an  air  as  possible  while 
he  did  so.  Aunt  Plessington  passed  rapidly  from 
general  principles,  to  a  sketch  of  the  success  of  the 
movement,  and  Hubert,  who  had  hitherto  been  busy 
with  his  lunch,  became  audible  from  behind  the  ex- 
ceptionally large  floral  trophy  that  concealed  him 
from  his  wife,  bubbling  confirmatory  details.  She 
was  very  bright  and  convincing  as  she  told  of  this 
prominent  man  met  and  subdued,  that  leading  an- 
tagonist confuted,  and  how  the  Bishops  were  coming 
in.  She  made  it  clear  in  her  swift  way  that  an 
hitelligent  cleric  resolved  to  get  on  in  this  world  en 
route  for  a  better  one  hereafter,  might  do  worse  than 
take  up  her  Movement.  And  this  touched  in,  she 
turned  her  mind  to  Mr.  Magnet. 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    79 

(That  floral  trophy,  I  should  explain,  by  the  by, 
was  exceptionally  large  because  of  Mrs.  Pope's  firm 
conviction  that  Aunt  Plessington  starved  her  hus- 
band. Accordingly,  she  masked  him,  and  so  was  able 
to  heap  second  and  third  helpings  upon  his  plate 
without  Aunt  Plessington  discovering  his  lapse.  The 
avidity  with  which  Hubert  ate  confirmed  her  worst 
suspicions  and  evinced,  so  far  as  anything  ever  did 
evince,  his  gratitude.) 

"  Well,  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  said,  "  I  wish  I  had 
your  sense  of  humour." 

"  I  wish  you  had,"  said  Mr.  Magnet. 

"  I  should  write  tracts,"  said  Aunt  Plessington. 

"  I  knew  it  was  good  for  something,"  said  Mr. 
Magnet,  and  Daffy  laughed  in  a  tentative  way. 

"  I  mean  it,"  said  Aunt  Plessington  brightly. 
"  Think  if  we  had  a  Dickens — and  you  are  the  near- 
est man  alive  to  Dickens — on  the  side  of  social 
reform  to-day!" 

Mr.  Magnet's  light  manner  deserted  him.  "  We 
do  what  we  can,  Mrs.  Plessington,"  he  said. 

"  How  much  more  might  be  done,"  said  Aun-t 
Plessington,  "  if  humour  could  be  organized." 

"  Hear,  hear !"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"  If  all  the  humorists  of  England  could  be  in- 
duced to  laugh  at  something  together." 

"  They  do — at  times,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  but  the 
atmosphere  was  too  serious  for  his  light  touch. 

"  They  could  laugh  it  out  of  existence,"  said 
Aunt  Plessington. 

It  was  evident  Mr.  Magnet  was  struck  by  the  idea. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  in  Punch,  to  which  I 
happen  to  be  an  obscure  occasional  contributor " 

Mrs.  Pope  was  understood  to  protest  that  he 
should  not  say  such  things. 


80  MARRIAGE 

"  We  do  remember  just  what  we  can  do  either  in 
the  way  of  advertising  or  injury.  I  don't  think 
you'll  find  us  up  against  any  really  solid  institutions." 

"  But  do  you  think,  Mr.  Magnet,  you  are  suf- 
ficiently kind  to  the  New?"  Aunt  Plessington  per- 
sisted. 

"  I  think  we  are  all  grateful  to  Punch"  said  the 
Rev.  Jopling  Baynes  suddenly  and  sonorously,  "  for 
its  steady  determination  to  direct  our  mirth  into  the 
proper  channels.  I  do  not  think  that  any  one  can 
accuse  its  editor  of  being  unmindful  of  his  great 
responsibilities J: 

Marjorie  found  it  a  very  interesting  conversation. 

She  always  met  her  aunt  again  with  a  renewal  of 
a  kind  of  admiration.  That  loud  authoritative  rude- 
ness, that  bold  thrusting  forward  of  the  Movement 
until  it  became  the  sole  criterion  of  worth  or  success, 
this  annihilation  by  disregard  of  all  that  Aunt  Ples- 
sington wasn't  and  didn't  and  couldn't,  always  in  the 
intervals  seemed  too  good  to  be  true.  Of  course  this 
really  was  the  way  people  got  on  and  made  a  mark, 
but  she  felt  it  must  be  almost  as  trying  to  the  nerves 
as  aeronautics.  Suppose,  somewhere  up  there  your 
engine  stopped!  How  Aunt  Plessington  dominated 
the  table!  Marjorie  tried  not  to  catch  Daffy's  eye. 
Daffy  was  unostentatiously  keeping  things  going, 
watching  the  mustard,  rescuing  the  butter,  restrain- 
ing Theodore,  and  I  am  afraid  not  listening  very 
carefully  to  Aunt  Plessington.  The  children  were 
marvellously  silent  and  jumpily  well-behaved,  and 
Mr.  Pope,  in  a  very  unusual  state  of  subdued  amiabil- 
ity, sat  at  the  end  of  the  table  with  the  East  Pur- 
blow  experiment  on  the  tip  of  his  tongue.  He  liked 
Aunt  Plessington,  and  she  was  good  for  him.  They 
had  the  same  inherent  distrust  of  the  intelligence 
and  good  intentions  of  their  fellow  creatures,  and  she 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    81 

had  the  knack  of  making  him  feel  that  he  too  was 
getting  on,  that  she  was  saying  things  on  his  behalf 
in  influential  quarters,  and  in  spite  of  the  almost 
universal  conspiracy  (based  on  jealousy)  to  ignore 
his  stern  old-world  virtues,  he  might  still  be  able  to 
battle  his  way  to  the  floor  of  the  House  of  Commons 
and  there  deliver  himself  before  he  died  of  a  few  sore- 
ly needed  home-truths  about  motor  cars,  decadence 
and  frivolity  generally.  .  .  . 

§9 

After  lunch  Aunt  Plessington  took  her  little 
Madge  for  an  energetic  walk,  and  showed  herself  far 
more  observant  than  the  egotism  of  her  conversation 
at  that  meal  might  have  led  one  to  suppose.  Or 
perhaps  she  was  only  better  informed.  Aunt  Ples- 
sington loved  a  good  hard  walk  in  the  afternoon; 
and  if  she  could  get  any  one  else  to  accompany  her, 
then  Hubert  stayed  at  home,  and  curled  up  into  a 
ball  on  a  sofa  somewhere,  and  took  a  little  siesta  that 
made  him  all  the  brighter  for  the  intellectual  activi- 
ties of  the  evening.  The  thought  of  a  young  life, 
new,  untarnished,  just  at  the  outset,  just  addressing 
itself  to  the  task  of  getting  on,  always  stimulated  her 
mind  extremely,  and  she  talked  to  Marjorie  with  a 
very  real  and  effectual  desire  to  help  her  to  the 
utmost  of  her  ability. 

She  talked  of  a  start  in  life,  and  the  sort  of  start 
she  had  had.  She  showed  how  many  people  who 
began  with  great  advantages  did  not  shove  sufficient- 
ly, and  so  dropped  out  of  things  and  weren't  seen  and 
mentioned.  She  defended  herself  for  marrying  Hu- 
bert, and  showed  what  a  clever  shoving  thing  it  had 
been  to  do.  It  startled  people  a  little,  and  made  them 
realize  that  here  was  a  woman  who  wanted  something 
more  in  a  man  than  a  handsome  organ-grinder.  She 


82  MARRIAGE 

made  it  clear  that  she  thought  a  clever  marriage,  if 
not  a  startlingly  brilliant  one,  the  first  duty  of  a 
girl.  It  was  a  girl's  normal  gambit.  She  branched 
off  to  the  things  single  women  might  do,  in  order  to 
justify  this  view.  She  did  not  think  single  women 
could  do  very  much.  They  might  perhaps  shove  as 
suffragettes,  but  even  there  a  husband  helped  tre- 
mendously— if  only  by  refusing  to  bail  you  out. 
She  ran  over  the  cases  of  a  number  of  prominent 
single  women. 

"  And  what,"  said  Aunt  Plessington,  "  do  they 
all  amount  to?  A  girl  is  so  hampered  and  an  old 
maid  is  so  neglected,"  said  Aunt  Plessington. 

She  paused. 

"  Why  don't  you  up  and  marry  Mr.  Magnet, 
Marjorie?"  she  said,  with  her  most  brilliant  flash. 

"  It  takes  two  to  make  a  marriage,  aunt,"  said 
Marjorie  after  a  slight  hesitation. 

"  My  dear  child !  he  worships  the  ground  you 
tread  on !"  said  Aunt  Plessington. 

"  He's  rather — grown  up,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  He's  not  forty.  He's  just  the 
age." 

"  I'm  afraid  it's  a  little  impossible." 

"Impossible?" 

"  You  see  I've  refused  him,  aunt." 

"  Naturally— the  first  time !  But  I  wouldn't  send 
him  packing  the  second." 

There  was  an  interval. 

Marjorie  decided  on  a  blunt  question.  "  Do  you 
really  think,  aunt,  I  should  do  well  to  marry  Mr. 
Magnet?" 

"  He'd  give  you  everything  a  clever  woman 
needs,"  said  Aunt  Plessington.  "  Everything." 

With  swift  capable  touches  she  indicated  the  sort 
of  life  the  future  Mrs.  Magnet  might  enjoy.  "  He's 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    88 

evidently  a  man  who  wants  helping  to  a  position," 
she  said.  "  Of  course  his  farces  and  things,  I'm  told, 
make  no  end  of  money,  but  he's  just  a  crude  gift  by 
himself.  Money  like  that  is  nothing.  With  a  clever 
wife  he  might  be  all  sorts  of  things.  Without  one 
he'll  just  subside — you  know  the  sort  of  thing  this 
sort  of  man  does.  A  rather  eccentric  humorous 
house  in  the  country,  golf,  croquet,  horse-riding, 
rose-growing,  queer  hats." 

"  Isn't  that  rather  what  he  would  like  to  do, 
aunt?"  said  Marjorie. 

"  That's  not  our  business,  Madge,"  said1  Aunt 
Plessington  with  humorous  emphasis. 

She  began  to  sketch  out  a  different  and  altogether 
smarter  future  for  the  fortunate  humorist.  There 
would  be  a  house  in  a  good  central  position  in  Lon- 
don where  Marjorie  would  have  bright  successful 
lunches  and  dinners,  very  unpretending  and  very 
good,  and  tempt  the  clever  smart  with  the  lure  of  the 
interestingly  clever;  there  would  be  a  bright  little 
country  cottage  in  some  pretty  accessible  place  to 
which  Aunt  and  Uncle  Plessington  and  able  and  in- 
fluential people  generally  could  be  invited  for  gaily 
recreative  and  yet  extremely  talkative  and  helpful 
week-ends.  Both  places  could  be  made  centres  of 
intrigue ;  conspiracies  for  getting  on  and  helping  and 
exchanging  help  could  be  organized,  people  could  be 
warned  against  people  whose  getting-on  was  undesir- 
able. In  the  midst  of  it  all,  dressed  with  all  the 
natural  wit  she  had  and  an  enlarging  experience, 
would  be  Marjorie,  shining  like  a  rising  planet.  It 
wouldn't  be  long,  if  she  did  things  well,  before  she 
had  permanent  officials  and  young  cabinet  ministers 
mingling  with  her  salad  of  writers  and  humorists  and 
the  Plessington  connexion. 

"  Then,"  said  Aunt  Plessington  with  a  joyous 
lift  in  her  voice,  "  you'll  begin  to  weed  a  little." 


84  MARRIAGE 

For  a  time  the  girl's  mind  resisted  her. 

But  Marjorie  was  of  the  impressionable  sex  at  an 
impressionable  age,  and  there  was  something  over- 
whelming in  the  undeviating  conviction  of  her  aunt, 
in  the  clear  assurance  of  her  voice,  that  this  life  which 
interested  her  was  the  real  life,  the  only  possible 
successful  life.  The  world  reformed  itself  in  Mar- 
jorie's  fluent  mind,  until  it  was  all  a  scheme  of 
influence  and  effort  and  ambition  and  triumphs.  Din- 
ner-parties and  receptions,  men  wearing  orders, 
cabinet  ministers  more  than  a  little  in  love  asking  her 
advice,  beautiful  robes,  a  great  blaze  of  lights ;  why ! 
she  might  be,  said  Aunt  Plessington  rising  to  en- 
thusiasm, "  another  Marcella."  The  life  was  not 
without  its  adventurous  side;  it  wasn't  in  any  way 
dull.  Aunt  Plessington  to  illustrate  that  point  told 
amusing  anecdotes  of  how  two  almost  impudent  in- 
vitations on  her  part  had  succeeded,  and  how  she 
had  once  scored  off  her  elder  sister  by  getting  a 
coveted  celebrity  through  their  close  family  resem- 
blance. "  After  accepting  he  couldn't  very  well 
refuse  because  I  wasn't  somebody  else,"  she  ended 
gleefully.  "  So  he  came — and  stayed  as  long  as 
anybody." 

What  else  was  there  for  Marjorie  to  contem- 
plate? If  she  didn't  take  this  by  no  means  unat- 
tractive line,  what  was  the  alternative?  Some  sort 
of  employment  after  a  battle  with  her  father,  a  par- 
simonious life,  and  even  then  the  Oxbridge  trades- 
men and  their  immortal  bills.  .  .  . 

Aunt  Plessington  was  so  intent  upon  her  theme 
that  she  heeded  nothing  of  the  delightful  little  flowers 
she  trampled  under  foot  across  the  down,  nor  the 
jolly  squirrel  with  an  artistic  temperament  who  saw 
fit  to  give  an  uninvited  opinion  upon  her  personal 
appearance  from  the  security  of  a  beech-tree  in  the 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    85 

wood.  But  Marjorie,  noting  quite  a  number  of  such 
things  with  the  corner  of  her  mind,  and  being  now 
well  under  the  Plessington  sway,  wished  she  had  more 
concentration.  .  .  . 

In  the  evening  after  supper  the  customary  games 
were  suspended,  and  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Plessington  talked 
about  getting  on,  and  work  and  efficiency  generally, 
and  explained  how  so-and-so  had  spoilt  his  chances 
in  life,  and  why  so-and-so  was  sure  to  achieve  nothing, 
and  how  this  man  ate  too  much  and  that  man  drank 
too  much,  and  on  the  contrary  what  promising  and 
capable  people  the  latest  adherents  of  and  subscrib- 
ers to  the  Movement  were,  until  two  glasses  of  hot 
water  came — Aunt  Plessington  had  been  told  it  was 
good  for  her  digestion  and  she  thought  it  just  as  well 
that  Hubert  should  have  some  too — and  it  was  time 
for  every  one  to  go  to  bed. 

§   10 

Next  morning  an  atmosphere  of  getting  on  and 
strenuosity  generally  prevailed  throughout  the  vicar- 
age. The  Plessingtons  were  preparing  a  memoran- 
dum on  their  movement  for  the  "  Reformer's  Year 
Book,"  every  word  was  of  importance  and  might  win 
or  lose  adherents  and  subscribers,  and  they  secured 
the  undisturbed  possession  of  the  drawing-room, 
from  which  the  higher  notes  of  Aunt  Plessington's 
voice  explaining  the  whole  thing  to  Hubert,  who  had 
to  write  it  out,  reached,  a  spur  to  effort,  into  every 
part  of  the  house. 

Their  influence  touched  every  one. 

Marjorie,  struck  by  the  idea  that  she  was  not 
perhaps  getting  on  at  Oxbridge  so  fast  as  she  ought 
to  do,  went  into  the  summer-house  with  Marshall's 
"  Principles  of  Economics,"  read  for  two  hours,  and 
did1  not  think  about  her  bills  for  more  than  a  quarter 


86  MARRIAGE 

of  the  time.  Rom,  who  had  already  got  up  early  and 
read  through  about  a  third  of  "  Aurora  Leigh,"  now 
set  herself  with  dogged  determination  to  finish  that 
great  poem.  Syd  practised  an  extra  ten  minutes — • 
for  Aunt  Plessington  didn't  mind  practice  so  long  as 
there  wasn't  a  tune.  Mrs.  Pope  went  into  the  kitchen 
and  made  a  long-needed  fuss  about  the  waste  of  rice. 
Mr.  Pope  began  the  pamphlet  he  had  had  in  contem- 
plation for  some  time  upon  the  advantages  to  public 
order  of  Payment  in  Kind.  Theodore,  who  had 
washed  behind  his  ears  and  laced  his  boots  in  all  the 
holes,  went  into  the  yard  before  breakfast  and  hit  a 
tennis  ball  against  the  wall  and  back,  five  hundred 
and  twenty-two  times — a  record.  He  would  have 
resumed  this  after  breakfast,  but  his  father  came 
round  the  corner  of  the  house  with  a  pen  in  his  mouth, 
and  asked  him  indistinctly,  but  fiercely,  what  the 
devil  he  was  doing.  So  he  went  away,  and  after  a 
fretful  interval  set  himself  to  revise  his  Latin  irregu- 
lar verbs.  By  twelve  he  had  done  wonders. 

Later  in  the  day  the  widening  circle  of  aggressive 
urgency  reached  the  kitchen,  and  at  two  the  cook 
gave  notice  in  order,  she  said,  to  better  herself. 

Lunch,  unconscious  of  this  impending  shadow, 
was  characterized  by  a  virtuous  cheerfulness,  and1 
Aunt  Plessington  told  in  detail  how  her  seven  and 
twenty  nephews  and  nieces,  the  children  of  her  vari- 
ous sisters,  were  all  getting  on.  On  the  whole,  they 
were  not  getting  on  so  brilliantly  as  they  might  have 
done  (which  indeed  is  apt  to  be  the  case  with  the 
children  of  people  who  have  loved  not  well  but  too 
wisely),  and  it  was  borne  in  upon  the  mind  of  the 
respectfully  listening  Marjorie  that,  to  borrow  an 
easy  colloquialism  of  her  aunt's,  she  might  "  take 
the  shine  out  of  the  lot  of  them  "  with  a  very  little 
zeal  and  effort — and  of  course  Mr.  Magnet. 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    87 

The  lecture  in  the  evening  at  Summerhay  was  a 
great  success. 

The  chair  was  taken  by  the  Rev.  Jopling  Baynes, 
Lady  Petchworth  was  enthroned  behind  the  table, 
Hubert  was  in  charge  of  his  wife's  notes — if  notes 
should  be  needed — and  Mr.  Pope,  expectant  of  an  in- 
vitation at  the  end  to  say  a  few  words  about  the  East 
Purblow  experiment,  also  occupied  a  chair  on  the 
platform.  Lady  Petchworth,  with  her  abundant  soft 
blond  hair,  brightly  blond  still  in  spite  of  her  fifty- 
five  years,  her  delicate  features,  her  plump  hands,  her 
numerous  chins  and  her  entirely  inaudible  voice,  made 
a  pleasing  contrast  with  Aunt  Plessington's  resolute 
personality.  She  had  perhaps  an  even  greater  as- 
surance of  authority,  but  it  was  a  quiet  assurance; 
you  felt  that  she  knew  that  if  she  spoke  in  her  sleep 
she  would  be  obeyed,  that  it  was  quite  unnecessary  to 
make  herself  heard.  The  two  women,  indeed,  the  one 
so  assertive,  the  other  so  established,  were  at  the 
opposite  poles  of  authoritative  British  womanhood, 
and  harmonized  charmingly.  The  little  room  struck 
the  note  of  a  well-regulated  brightness  at  every  point, 
it  had  been  decorated  in  a  Keltic  but  entirely  respect- 
ful style  by  one  of  Lady  Petchworth's  artistic  dis- 
coveries, it  was  lit  by  paraffin  lamps  that  smelt 
hardly  at  all,  and  it  was  gay  with  colour  prints  illus- 
trating the  growth  of  the  British  Empire  from  the 
battle  of  Ethandune  to  the  surrender  of  Cronje.  The 
hall  was  fairly  full.  Few  could  afford  to  absent 
themselves  from  these  brightening  occasions,  but 
there  was  a  tendency  on  the  part  of  the  younger  and 
the  less  thoughtful  section  of  the  village  manhood  to 
accumulate  at  the  extreme  back  and  rumble  in  what 
appeared  to  be  a  slightly  ironical  spirit,  so  far  as  it 
had  any  spirit,  with  its  feet. 


88  MARRIAGE 

The  Rev.  Jopling  Baynes  opened  proceedings 
with  a  few  well-chosen  remarks,  in  which  he  compli- 
mented every  one  present  either  singly  or  collectively 
according  to  their  rank  and  importance,  and  then 
Aunt  Plessington  came  forward  to  the  centre  of  the 
platform  amidst  a  hectic  flush  of  applause,  and  said 
"  Haw !"  in  a  loud  clear  ringing  tone. 

She  spoke  without  resorting  to  the  notes  in  Hu- 
bert's little  fist,  very  freely  and  easily.  Her  strangu- 
lated contralto  went  into  every  corner  of  the  room 
and  positively  seemed  to  look  for  and  challenege 
inattentive  auditors.  She  had  come  over,  she  said, 
and  she  had  been  very  glad  to  come  over  and  talk  to 
them  that  night,  because  it  meant  not  only  seeing  them 
but  meeting  her  very  dear  delightful  friend  Lady 
Petchworth  (loud  applause)  and  staying  for  a  day 
or  so  with  her  brother-in-law  Mr.  Pope  (unsupported 
outburst  of  applause  from  Mr.  Magnet),  to  whom 
she  and  social  reform  generally  owed  so  much.  She 
had  come  to  talk  to  them  that  night  about  the  Na- 
tional Good  Habits  Movement,  which  was  attracting 
so  much  attention  and  which  bore  so  closely  on  our 
National  Life  and  Character;  she  happened  to  be — 
here  Aunt  Plessington  smiled  as  she  spoke — a  hum- 
ble person  connected  with  that  movement,  just  a 
mere  woman  connected  with  it;  she  was  going  to 
explain  to  them  as  well  as  she  could  in  her  womanly 
way  and  in  the  time  at  her  disposal  just  what  it  was 
and  just  what  it  was  for,  and  just  what  means  it 
adopted  and  just  what  ends  it  had  in  view.  Well, 
they  all  knew  what  Habits  were,  and  that  there  were 
Good  Habits  and  Bad  Habits,  and  she  supposed  that 
the  difference  between  a  good  man  and  a  bad  man 
was  just  that  the  good  man  had  good  habits  and  the 
bad  one  had  bad  habits.  Everybody  she  supposed 
wanted  to  get  on.  If  a  man  had  good  habits  he  got 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    89 

on,  and  if  he  had  bad  habits  he  didn't  get  on,  and  she 
supposed  it  was  the  same  with  a  country,  if  its  people 
had  good  habits  they  got  on,  and  if  its  people  had 
bad  habits  they  didn't  get  on.  For  her  own  part  she 
and  her  husband  (Hubert  gave  a  little  self-conscious 
jump)  had  always  cultivated  good  habits,  and  she 
had  to  thank  him  with  all  her  heart  for  his  help  in 
doing  so.  (Applause  from  the  front  seats.)  Now, 
the  whole  idea  of  her  movement  was  to  ask,  how  can 
we  raise  the  standard  of  the  national  habits  ?  how  can 
we  get  rid  of  bad  habits  and  cultivate  good  ones? 
.  .  .  (Here  there  was  a  slight  interruption  due  to 
some  one  being  suddenly  pushed  off  the  end  of  a 
form  at  the  back,  and  coming  to  the  floor  with  audi- 
ble violence,  after  which  a  choked  and  obstructed1 
tittering  continued  intermittently  for  some  time.) 

Some  of  her  audience,  she  remarked,  had  not  yet 
acquired  the  habit  of  sitting  still. 

(Laughter,  and  a  coarse  vulgar  voice : "  Good  'old 
BiUy  Punt!") 

Well,  to  resume,  she  and  her  husband  had  made  a 
special  and  careful  study  of  habits;  they  had  con- 
sulted all  sorts  of  people  and  collected  all  sorts  of 
statistics,  in  fact  they  had  devoted  themselves  to  this 
question,  and  the  conclusion  to  which  they  came  was 
this,  that  Good  Habits  were  acquired  by  Training 
and  Bad  Habits  came  from  neglect  and  carelessness 
and  leaving  people,  who  weren't  fit  for  such  freedom, 
to  run  about  and  do  just  whatever  they  liked.  And 
so,  she  went  on  with  a  note  of  complete  demonstra- 
tion, the  problem  resolved  itself  into  the  question  of 
how  far  they  could  get  more  Training  into  the  na- 
tional life,  and  how  they  could  check  extravagant  and 
unruly  and  wasteful  and  unwise  ways  of  living. 
(Hear,  hear!  from  Mr.  Pope.)  And  this  was  the 
problem  she  and  her  husband  had  set  themselves  to 
solve. 


90  MARRIAGE 

(Scuffle,  and  a  boy's  voice  at  the  back,  saying: 
"  Oh,  shut  it,  Nuts !  SHUT  it !") 

Well,  she  and  her  husband  had  worked  the  thing 
out,  and  they  had  come  to  the  conclusion  that  what 
was  the  matter  with  the  great  mass  of  English  people 
was  first  that  they  had  rather  too  much  loose  money, 
and  secondly  that  they  had  rather  too  much  loose 
time.  (A  voice:  "What  O!"  and  the  Rev.  Jopling 
Baynes  suddenly  extended  his  neck,  knitted  his  brows, 
and  became  observant  of  the  interrupter.)  She  did 
not  say  they  had  too  much  money  (a  second  voice: 
"Not  Arf!"),  but  too  much  loose  money.  She  did 
not  say  they  had  too  much  time  but  too  much  loose 
time,  that  is  to  say,  they  had  money  and  time  they 
did  not  know  how  to  spend  properly.  And  so  they 
got  into  mischief.  A  great  number  of  people  in  this 
country,  she  maintained,  and  this  was  especially  true 
of  the  lower  classes,  did  not  know  how  to  spend  either 
money  or  time;  they  bought  themselves  wasteful 
things  and  injurious  things,  and  they  frittered  away 
their  hours  in  all  sorts  of  foolish,  unprofitable  ways. 
And,  after  the  most  careful  and  scientific  study  of 
this  problem,  she  and  her  husband  had  come  to  the 
conclusion  that  two  main  principles  must  underlie 
any  remedial  measures  that  were  attempted,  the  first 
of  which  was  the  Principle  of  Payment  in  Kind,  which 
had  already  had  so  interesting  a  trial  at  the  great 
carriage  works  of  East  Purblow,  and  the  second,  the 
Principle  of  Continuous  Occupation,  which  had  been 
recognized  long  ago  in  popular  wisdom  by  that 
admirable  proverb — or  rather  quotation — she  be- 
lieved it  was  a  quotation,  though  she  gave,  she  feared, 
very  little  time  to  poetry  ("Better  employed,"  from 
Mr.  Pope)— 

"Satan  finds  some  mischief  still 
For  idle  hands  to  do." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    91 

(Irrepressible  outbreak  of  wild  and  sustained  ap- 
plause from  the  back  seats,  and  in  a  sudden  lull  a 
female  voice  asking  in  a  flattened,  thwarted  tone: 
"  Ain't  there  to  be  no  lantern  then?") 

The  lecturer  went  on  to  explain  what  was  meant 
by  either  member  of  what  perhaps  they  would  per- 
mit her  to  call  this  double-barrelled  social  remedy. 

It  was  an  admirable  piece  of  lucid  exposition. 
Slowly  the  picture  of  a  better,  happier,  more  dis- 
ciplined England  grew  upon  the  minds  of  the  meet- 
ing. First  she  showed  the  new  sort  of  employer  her 
movement  would  evoke,  an  employer  paternal,  phil- 
anthropic, vaguely  responsible  for  the  social  order 
of  all  his  dependants.  (Lady  Petchworth  was  seen 
to  nod  her  head  slowly  at  this.)  Only  in  the  last 
resort,  and  when  he  was  satisfied  that  his  worker 
and  his  worker's  family  were  properly  housed,  hy- 
gienically  clothed  and  fed,  attending  suitable  courses 
of  instruction  and  free  from  any  vicious  inclinations, 
would  he  pay  wages  in  cash.  In  the  discharge  of  the 
duties  of  payment  he  would  have  the  assistance  of 
expert  advice,  and  the  stimulus  of  voluntary  inspec- 
tors of  his  own  class.  He  would  be  the  natural  clan- 
master,  the  captain  and  leader,  adviser  and  care- 
taker of  his  banded  employees.  Responsibility 
would  stimulate  him,  and  if  responsibility  did  not 
stimulate  him,  inspectors  (both  men  and  women 
inspectors)  would.  The  worker,  on  the  other  hand, 
would  be  enormously  more  healthy  and  efficient  under 
the  new  regime.  His  home,  designed  by  qualified  and 
officially  recognized  architects,  would  be  prettier  as 
well  as  more  convenient  and  elevating  to  his  taste, 
liis  children  admirably  trained  and  dressed  in  the  new 
and  more  beautiful  clothing  with  which  Lady  Petch- 
worth (applause)  had  done  so  much  to  make  them 
familiar,  his  vital  statistics  compared  with  current 


92  MARRIAGE 

results  would  be  astonishingly  good,  his  mind  free 
from  any  anxiety  but  the  proper  anxiety  of  a  man 
in  his  position,  to  get  his  work  done  properly  and 
earn  recognition  from  those  competent  and  duly  au- 
thorized to  judge  it.  Of  all  this  she  spoke  with  the 
inspiring  note  of  absolute  conviction.  All  this  would 
follow  Payment  in  Kind  and  Continuous  Occupation 
as  days  follow  sunrise.  And  there  would  always, — • 
and  here  Aunt  Plessington's  voice  seemed  to  brighten 
— be  something  for  the  worker  to  get  on  with,  some- 
thing for  him  to  do ;  lectures,  classes,  reading-rooms, 
improving  entertainments.  His  time  would  be  filled. 
The  proper  authorities  would  see  that  it  was  filled — 
and  filled  in  the  right  way.  Never  for  a  moment 
need  he  be  bored.  He  would  never  have  an  excuse 
for  being  bored.  That  was  the  second  great  idea,  the 
complementary  idea  to  the  first.  "  And  here  it  is," 
she  said,  turning  a  large  encouraging  smile  on  Lady 
Petchworth,  "  that  the  work  of  a  National  Theatre, 
instructive,  stimulating,  well  regulated,  and  morally 
sustaining,  would  come  in."  He  wouldn't,  of  course, 
be  compelled  to  go,  but  there  would  be  his  seat,  part 
of  his  payment  in  kind,  and  the  public-house  would 
be  shut,  most  other  temptations  would  be  removed.  .  .  . 

The  lecture  reached  its  end  at  last  with  only  one 
other  interruption.  Some  would-be  humorist  sud- 
denly inquired,  a  propos  of  nothing :  "  What's  the 
fare  to  America,  Billy  ? "  and  a  voice,  presumbly 
Billy's,  answered  him :  "  Mor'n  you'll  ev  'av  in  you* 
pocket." 

The  Rev.  Jopling  Baynes,  before  he  called  upon 
Mr.  Pope  for  his  promised  utterance  about  East 
Purblow,  could  not  refrain  from  pointing  out  how 
silly  "  in  every  sense  of  the  word "  these  wanton 
interruptions  were.  What,  he  asked,  had  English 
social  reform  to  do  with  the  fare  to  America? — and 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    93 

having  roused  the  meeting  to  an  alert  silence  by  the 
length  of  his  pause,  answered  in  a  voice  of  ringing 
contempt  :  "  Nothing  —  whatsoever"  Then  Mr.  Pope 
made  his  few  remarks  about  East  Purblow  with  the 
ease  and  finish  that  comes  from  long  practice  ;  much, 
he  said,  had  to  be  omitted  "  in  view  of  "  the  restricted 
time  at  his  disposal,  but  he  did  not  grudge  that,  the 
time  had  been  better  filled.  ("  No,  no,"  from  Aunt 
Plessington.)  Yes,  yes,  —  by  the  lucid  and  delightful 
lecture  they  had  all  enjoyed,  and  he  not  least  among 
them.  (Applause.)  .  .  . 


They  came  out  into  a  luminous  blue  night,  with  a 
crescent  young  moon  high  overhead.  It  was  so  fine 
that  the  Popes  and  the  Plessingtons  and  Mr.  Magnet 
declined  Lady  Petchworth's  proffered  car,  and  walk- 
ed back  to  Buryhamstreet  across  the  park  through  a 
sleeping  pallid  cornfield,  and  along  by  the  edge  of 
the  pine  woods.  Mr.  Pope  would  have  liked  to  walk 
with  Mr.  Magnet  and  explain  all  that  the  pressure  on 
his  time  had  caused  him  to  omit  from  his  speech,  and 
why  it  was  he  had  seen  fit  to  omit  this  part  and 
include  that.  Some  occult  power,  however,  baffled 
this  intention,  and  he  found  himself  going  home  in  the 
company  of  his  brother-in-law  and  Daffy,  with  Aunt 
Plessington  and  his  wife  like  a  barrier  between  him 
and  his  desire.  Marjorie,  on  the  other  hand,  found 
Mr.  Magnet's  proximity  inevitable.  They  fell  a  little 
behind  and  were  together  again  for  the  first  time 
since  her  refusal. 

He  behaved,  she  thought,  with  very  great  re- 
straint, and  indeed  he  left  her  a  little  doubtful  on 
that  occasion  whether  he  had  not  decided  to  take 


94  MARRIAGE 

her  decision  as  final.  He  talked  chiefly  about 
the  lecture,  which  had  impressed  him  very  deeply. 
Mrs.  Plessington,  he  said,  was  so  splendid — made 
him  feel  trivial.  He  felt  stirred  up  by  her, 
wanted  to  help  in  this  social  work,  this  picking 
up  of  helpless  people  from  the  muddle  in  which  they 
wallowed. 

He  seemed  not  only  extraordinarily  modest  but 
extraordinarily  gentle  that  night,  and  the  warm 
moonshine  gave  his  face  a  shadowed  earnestness  it 
lacked  in  more  emphatic  lights.  She  felt  the  pro- 
found change  in  her  feelings  towards  him  that  had 
followed  her  rejection  of  him.  It  had  cleared  away 
his  effect  of  oppression  upon  her.  She  had  no  longer 
any  sense  of  entanglement  and  pursuit,  and  all  the 
virtues  his  courtship  had  obscured  shone  clear  again* 
He  was  kindly,  he  was  patient — and  she  felt  some- 
thing about  him  a  woman  is  said  always  to  respect,  he 
gave  her  an  impression  of  ability.  After  all,  he  could 
banish  the  trouble  that  crushed  and  overwhelmed  her 
with  a  movement  of  his  little  finger.  Of  all  her  load 
of  debt  he  could  earn  the  payment  in  a  day. 

"  Your  aunt  goes  to-morrow?"  he  said. 

Marjorie  admitted  it. 

"  I  wish  I  could  talk  to  her  more.  She's  so  in- 
spiring." 

"  You  know  of  our  little  excursion  for  Friday  ?" 
he  asked  after  a  pause. 

She  had  not  heard.  Friday  was  Theodore's 
birthday;  she  knew  it  only  too  well  because  she  had 
had  to  part  with  her  stamp  collection — which  very 
luckily  had  chanced  to  get  packed  and  come  to  Bury- 
hamstreet — to  meet  its  demand.  Mr.  Magnet  ex- 
plained he  had  thought  it  might  be  fun  to  give  a 
picnic  in  honour  of  the  anniversary. 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   95 

"  How  jolly  of  you!"  said  Marjorie. 

"  There's  a  pretty  bit  of  river  between  Wamping 
and  Friston  Hanger  —  I've  wanted  you  to  see  it 
for  a  long  time,  and  Friston  Hanger  church  has 
the  prettiest  view.  The  tower  gets  the  bend  of  the 
river." 

He  told  her  all  he  meant  to  do  as  if  he  submitted 
his  plans  for  her  approval.  They  would  drive  to 
Wamping  and  get  a  very  comfortable  little  steam 
launch  one  could  hire  there.  Wintersloan  was  com- 
ing down  again  ;  an  idle  day  of  this  kind  just  suited 
his  temperament.  Theodore  would  like  it,  wouldn't 
he? 

"  Theodore  will  think  he  is  King  of  Surrey  !" 

"  I'll  have  a  rod  and  line  if  he  wants  to  fish.  I 
don't  want  to  forget  anything.  I  want  it  to  be  his 
day  really  and  truly." 

The  slightest  touch  upon  the  pathetic  note?  She 
could  not  tell. 

But  that  evening  brought  Marjorie  nearer  to 
loving  Magnet  than  she  had  ever  been.  Before  she 
went  to  sleep  that  night  she  had  decided  he  was  quite 
a  tolerable  person  again;  she  had  been  too  nervous 
and  unjust  with  him.  After  all,  his  urgency  and 
awkwardness  had  been  just  a  part  of  his  sincerity. 
Perhaps  the  faint  doubt  whether  he  would  make  his 
request  again  gave  the  zest  of  uncertainty  to  his 
devotion.  Of  course,  she  told  herself,  he  would  ask 
again.  And  then  the  blissful  air  of  limitless  means 
she  might  breathe.  The  blessed  release.  .  .  . 

She  was  suddenly  fast  asleep. 


Friday  was  after  all  not  so  much  Theodore's  day 
as  Mr.  Magnet's, 


96  MARRIAGE 

Until  she  found  herself  committed  there  was  no 
shadow  of  doubt  in  Marjorie's  mind  of  what  she 
meant  to  do.  "  Before  I  see  you  again,"  said  Aunt 
Plessington  at  the  parting  kiss,  "  I  hope  you'll  have 
something  to  tell  me."  She  might  have  been  Hymen 
thinly  disguised  as  an  aunt,  waving  from  the  depart- 
ing train.  She  continued  by  vigorous  gestures  and 
unstinted  display  of  teeth  and  a  fluttering  handker- 
chief to  encourage  Marjorie  to  marry  Mr.  Mag- 
net, until  the  curve  of  the  cutting  hid  her  from 
view.  .  .  . 

Fortune  favoured  Mr.  Magnet  with  a  beautiful 
day,  and  the  excursion  was  bright  and  successful 
from  the  outset.  It  was  done  well,  and  what  perhaps 
was  more  calculated  to  impress  Marjorie,  it  was  done 
with  lavish  generosity.  From  the  outset  she  turned  a 
smiling  countenance  upon  her  host.  She  did  her 
utmost  to  suppress  a  reviving  irrational  qualm  in 
her  being,  to  maintain  clearly  and  simply  her  over- 
night decision,  that  he  should  propose  again  and  that 
she  should  accept  him. 

Yet  the  festival  was  just  a  little  dreamlike  in  its 
quality  to  her  perceptions.  She  found  she  could 
not  focus  clearly  on  its  details. 

Two  waggonettes  came  from  Wamping;  there 
was  room  for  everybody  and  to  spare,  and  Wamping 
revealed  itself  a  pleasant  small  country  town  with 
stocks  under  the  market  hall,  and  just  that  tint  of 
green  paint  and  that  loafing  touch  the  presence  of 
a  boating  river  gives. 

The  launch  was  brilliantly  smart  with  abundant 
crimson  cushions  and  a  tasselled  awning,  and  away 
to  the  left  was  a  fine  old  bridge  that  dated  in  its 
essentials  from  Plantagenet  times. 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    97 

They  started  with  much  whistling  and  circling, 
and  went  away  up  river  under  overhanging  trees  that 
sometimes  swished  the  funnel,  splashing  the  meadow 
path  and  making  the  reeds  and  bulrushes  dance  with 
their  wash.  They  went  through  a  reluctant  lock, 
steamed  up  a  long  reach,  they  passed  the  queerly 
painted  Potwell  Inn  with  its  picturesque  group  of 
poplars  and  its  absurd  new  notice-board  of  "  Om- 
lets."  .  .  .  Theodore  was  five  stone  of  active 
happiness;  he  and  the  pseudo-twins,  strictly  under 
his  orders  as  the  universal  etiquette  of  birthdays 
prescribes,  clambered  round  and  round  the  boat, 
clutching  the  awning  rail  and  hanging  over  the  water 
in  an  entirely  secure  and  perilous  looking  manner. 
No  one,  unless  his  father  happened  to  be  upset  by 
something,  would  check  him,  he  knew,  on  this  aus- 
picious day.  Mr.  Magnet  sat  with  the  grey  eye  on 
Marjorie  and  listened  a  little  abstractedly  to  Mr. 
Pope,  who  was  telling  very  fully  what  he  would  say 
if  the  Liberal  party  were  to  ask  his  advice  at  the 
present  juncture.  Mrs.  Pope  attended  discreetly, 
and  Daffy  and  Marjorie  with  a  less  restrained  inter- 
est, to  Mr.  Wintersloan,  who  showed  them  how  to 
make  faces  out  of  a  fist  tied  up  in  a  pocket-handker- 
chief, how  to  ventriloquize,  how  to  conjure  with 
halfpence — which  he  did  very  amusingly — and  what 
the  buttons  on  a  man's  sleeve  were  for;  Theodore 
clambering  at  his  back  discovered  what  he  was  at, 
and  by  right  of  birthday  made  him  do  all  the  faces 
and  tricks  over  again.  Then  Mr.  Wintersloan  told 
stories  of  all  the  rivers  along  which,  he  said,  he  had 
travelled  in  steamboats ;  the  Rhine,  the  Danube,  the 
Hoogly  and  the  Fall  River,  and  particularly  how  he 
had  been  bitten  by  a  very  young  crocodile.  "  It's 
the  smell  of  the  oil  brings  it  all  back  to  me,"  he  said. 
"  And  the  kind  of  sway  it  gives  you." 


98  MARRIAGE 

He  made  sinuous  movements  of  his  hand,  and 
looked  at  Marjorie  with  that  wooden  yet  expressive 
smile. 

Friston  Hanger  proved  to  be  even  better  than 
Wamping.  It  had  a  character  of  its  own  because  it 
was  built  very  largely  of  a  warm  buff  coloured  local 
rock  instead  of  the  usual  brick,  and  the  outhouses  at 
least  of  the  little  inn  at  which  they  landed'  were 
thatched.  Most  of  the  cottages  had  casement  win- 
dows with  diamond  panes,  and  the  streets  were  cob- 
bled and  very  up-and-down  hill.  The  place  ran  to 
high  walls  richly  suggestive  of  hidden  gardens,  over- 
hung by  big  trees  and  pierced  by  secretive  important 
looking  doors.  And  over  it  all  rose  an  unusually  big 
church,  with  a  tall  buttressed  tower  surmounted  by  a 
lantern  of  pierced  stone. 

"  We'll  go  through  the  town  and  look  at  the  ruins 
of  the  old  castle  beyond  the  church,"  said  Mr.  Mag- 
net to  Marjorie,  "  and  then  I  want  you  to  see  the 
view  from  the  church  tower." 

And  as  they  went  through  the  street,  he  called 
her  attention  again  to  the  church  tower  in  a  voice 
that  seemed  to  her  to  be  inexplicably  charged  with 
significance.  "  I  want  you  to  go  up  there,"  he  said. 

"How  about  something  to  eat,  Mr.  Magnet?" 
remarked  Theodore  suddenly,  and  everybody  felt  a 
little  surprised  when  Mr.  Magnet  answered :  "  Who 
wants  things  to  eat  on  your  birthday,  Theodore?" 

But  they  saw  the  joke  of  that  when  they  reached 
the  castle  ruins  and  found  in  the  old  tilting  yard, 
with  its  ivy-covered  arch  framing  a  view  of  the  town 
and  stream,  a  table  spread  with  a  white  cloth  that 
shone  in  the  sunshine,  glittering  with  glass  and  silver 
and  gay  with  a  bowl  of  salad  and  flowers  and  cold 
pies  and  a  jug  of  claret-cup  and  an  ice  pail — a  silver 
pail !  containing  two  promising  looking  bottles,  in  the 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    99 

charge  of  two  real  live  waiters,  in  evening  dress  as 
waiters  should  be,  but  with  straw  hats  to  protect 
them  from  the  sun  and  weather.  "  Oh !"  cried  Mrs. 
Pope,  "  what  a  splendid  idea,  Mr.  Magnet,"  when 
the  destination  of  the  feast  was  perfectly  clear,  and 
even  Theodore  seemed  a  little  overawed — almost  as 
if  he  felt  his  birthday  was  being  carried  too  far  and 
might  provoke  a  judgment  later.  Manifestly  Mr. 
Magnet  must  have  ordered  this  in  London,  and  have 
had  it  sent  down,  waiters  and  all !  Theodore  knew 
he  was  a  very  wonderful  little  boy  in  spite  of  the 
acute  criticism  of  four  devoted  sisters,  and  Mr. 
Magnet  had  noticed  him  before  at  times,  but  this 
was,  well,  rather  immense !  "  Look  at  the  pie-crusts, 
old  man!"  And  on  the  pie-crusts,  and  on  the  icing 
of  the  cake,  their  munificent  host  had  caused  to  be 
done  in  little  raised  letters  of  dough  and  chocolate 
the  word  "  Theodore." 

"Oh,  Mr.  Magnet!"  said  Marjorie — his  eye  so 
obviously  invited  her  to  say  something.  Mr.  Pope 
tried  a  nebulous  joke  about  "  groaning  boards  of 
Frisky  Hanger,"  and  only  Mr.  Wintersloan  restrain- 
ed his  astonishment  and  admiration.  "  You  could 
have  got  those  chaps  in  livery,"  he  said — unheeded. 
The  lunch  was  as  a  matter  of  fact  his  idea;  he  had 
refused  to  come  unless  it  was  provided,  and  he  had 
somehow  counted  on  blue  coats,  brass  buttons,  and 
yellow  waistcoats — but  everybody  else  of  course 
ascribed  the  whole  invention  to  Mr.  Magnet. 

"  Well,"  said  Mr.  Pope  with  a  fine  air  of  epigram, 
"  the  only  thing  I  can  say  is — to  eat  it,"  and  pre- 
pared to  sit  down. 

"  Melon,"  cried  Mr.  Magnet  to  the  waiters,  "  we'll 
begin  with  the  melon.  Have  you  ever  tried  melon 
with  pepper  and  salt,  Mrs.  Pope?" 


100  MARRIAGE 

"  You  put  salt  in  everything,"  admired  Mr.  Pope. 
"  Salt  from  those  attics  of  yours — Attic  salt." 

"  Or  there's  ginger !"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  after  a 
whisper  from  the  waiter. 

Mr.  Pope  said  something  classical  about  "  ginger 
hot  in  the  mouth." 

"  Some  of  these  days,"  said  Mr.  Wintersloan, 
"  when  I  have  exhausted  all  other  sensations,  I  mean 
to  try  melon  and  mustard." 

Rom  made  a  wonderful  face  at  him. 

"  I  can  think  of  worse  things  than  that,"  said  Mr. 
Wintersloan  with  a  hard  brightness. 

"Not  till  after  lunch,  Mr.  Wintersloan!"  said 
Rom  heartily. 

"  The  claret  cup's  all  right  for  Theodore,  Mrs. 
Pope,"  said  Magnet.  "  It's  a  special  twelve  year  old 
brand."  (He  thought  of  everything!) 

"Mummy,"  said  Mr.  Pope.  "You'd  better 
carve  this  pie,  I  think." 

"  I  want  very  much,"  said  Mr.  Magnet  in  Mar- 
jorie's  ear  and  very  confidentially,  "  to  show  you  the 
view  from  the  church  tower.  I  think — it  will  appeal 
to  you." 

"  Rom !"  said  Thepdore,  uncontrollably,  in  a 
tremendous  stage  whisper.  "  There's  peaches  !  .  .  . 
There!  on  the  hamper!" 

"  Champagne,  m'am?"  said  the  waiter  suddenly 
in  Mrs.  Pope's  ear,  wiping  ice-water  from  the  bottle. 

(But  what  could  it  have  cost  him?) 

§   13 

Marjorie  would  have  preferred  that  Mr.  Magnet 
should  not  have  decided  with  such  relentless  deter- 
mination to  make  his  second  proposal  on  the  church 
tower.  His  purpose  was  luminously  clear  to  her  from 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET   101 

the  beginning  of  lunch  onward,  and  she  could  feel 
her  nerves  going  under  the  strain  of  that  long  expec- 
tation. She  tried  to  pull  herself  together,  tried  not 
to  think  about  it,  tried  to  be  amused  by  the  high 
spirits  and  nonsense  of  Mr.  Wintersloan  and  Syd 
and  Rom  and  Theodore;  but  Mr.  Magnet  was  very 
pervasive,  and  her  mother  didn't  ever  look  at  her, 
looked  past  her  and  away  from  her  and  all  round  her, 
in  a  profoundly  observant  manner.  Marjorie  felt 
chiefly  anxious  to  get  to  the  top  of  that  predestinate 
tower  and  have  the  whole  thing  over,  and  it  was  with 
a  start  that  she  was  just  able  to  prevent  one  of  the 
assiduous  waiters  filling  her  glass  with  champagne 
for  the  third  time. 

There  was  a  little  awkwardness  in  dispersing  after 
lunch.  Mr.  Pope,  his  heart  warmed  by  the  cham- 
pagne and  mellowed  by  a  subsequent  excellent  cigar, 
wanted  very  much  to  crack  what  he  called  a  "  post- 
prandial jest  "  or  so  with  the  great  humorist,  while 
Theodore  also,  deeply  impressed  with  the  discovery 
that  there  was  more  in  Mr.  Magnet  than  he  had 
supposed,  displayed  a  strong  disposition  to  attach 
himself  more  closely  than  he  had  hitherto  done  to 
this  remarkable  person,  and  study  his  quiet  but 
enormous  possibilities  with  greater  attention.  Mrs. 
Pope  with  a  still  alertness  did  her  best  to  get  people 
adjusted,  but  Syd  and  Rom  had  conceived  a  base 
and  unnatural  desire  to  subjugate  the  affections  of 
the  youngest  waiter,  and  wouldn't  listen  to  her  pro- 
posal that  they  should  take  Theodore  away  into  the 
town;  Mr.  Wintersloan  displayed  extraordinary 
cunning  and  resource  in  evading  a  tete-a-tete  with 
Mr.  Pope  that  would  have  released  Mr.  Magnet. 
Now  Mrs.  Pope  came  to  think  of  it,  Mr.  Wintersloan 
never  had  had  the  delights  of  a  good  talk  with  Mr. 
Pope,  he  knew  practically  nothing  about  the  East 


102  MARRIAGE 

Purblow  experiment  except  for  what  Mr.  Magnet 
might  have  retailed  to  him,  and  she  was  very  greatly 
puzzled  to  account  for  his  almost  manifest  reluctance 
to  go  into  things  thoroughly.  Daffy  remained  on 
hand,  available  but  useless,  and  Mrs.  Pope,  smiling 
at  the  landscape  and  a  prey  to  Management  within, 
was  suddenly  inspired  to  take  her  eldest  daughter 
into  her  confidence.  "  Daffy,"  she  said,  with  a  guile- 
ful finger  extended  and  pointing  to  the  lower  sky 
as  though  she  was  pointing  out  the  less  obvious  and 
more  atmospheric  beauties  of  Surrey,  "  get  Theo- 
dore away  from  Mr.  Magnet  if  you  can.  He  wants 
to  talk  to  Marjorie." 

Daffy  looked  round.  "  Shall  I  call  him?"  she 
said. 

"  No,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  "  do  it— just— quietly." 

"  I'll  try,"  said  Daffy  and  stared  at  her  task,  and 
Mrs.  Pope,  feeling  that  this  might  or  might  not  suc- 
ceed but  that  anyhow  she  had  done  what  she  could, 
strolled  across  to  her  husband  and  laid  a  connubial 
touch  upon  his  shoulder.  "  All  the  young  people," 
she  said,  "  are  burning  to  climb  the  church  tower.  I 
never  can  understand  this  activity  after  lunch." 

"  Not  me,"  said  Mr.. Pope.     "  Eh,  Magnet?" 

"  Tm  game,"  said  Theodore.  "  Come  along,  Mr. 
Magnet." 

"  I  think,"  said  Mr.  Magnet  looking  at  Marjorie, 
"  I  shall  go  up.  I  want  to  show  Marjorie  the  view." 

"We'll  stay  here,  Mummy,  eh?"  said  Mr.  Pope, 
with  a  quite  unusual  geniality,  and  suddenly  put  his 
arm  round  Mrs.  Pope's  waist.  Her  motherly  eye 
sought  Daffy's,  and  indicated  her  mission.  "  I'll 
come  with  you,  Theodore,"  said  Daffy.  "  There  isn't 
room  for  everyone  at  once  up  that  tower." 

"  I'll  go  with  Mr.  Magnet,"  said  Theodore,  rely- 
ing firmly  on  the  privileges  of  the  day.  .  .  . 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    103 

For  a  time  they  played  for  position,  with  the 
intentions  of  Mr.  Magnet  showing  more  and  more 
starkly  through  the  moves  of  the  game.  At  last 
Theodore  was  lured  down  a  side  street  by  the  sight  of 
a  huge  dummy  fish  dangling  outside  a  tackle  and  bait 
shop,  and  Mr.  Magnet  and  Marjorie,  already  with  a 
dreadful  feeling  of  complicity,  made  a  movement  so 
rapid  it  seemed  to  her  almost  a  bolt  for  the  church 
tower.  .Whatever  Mr.  Magnet  desired  to  say,  and 
whatever  elasticity  his  mind  had  once  possessed  with 
regard  to  it,  there  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  had  now 
become  so  rigid  as  to  be  sayable  only  in  that  one 
precise  position,  and  in  the  exact  order  he  had  deter- 
mined upon.  But  when  at  last  they  got  to  that  high 
serenity,  Mr.  Magnet  was  far  too  hot  and  far  too 
much  out  of  breath  to  say  anything  at  all  for  a  time 
except  an  almost  explosive  gust  or  so  of  approbation 
of  the  scenery.  "  Shor'  breath !"  he  said,  "  win'ey 
stairs  always — that  'feet  on  me — buful  sceny — 
Suwy — like  it  always." 

Marjorie  found  herself  violently  disposed  to 
laugh;  indeed  she  had  never  before  been  so  near  the 
verge  of  hysterics. 

"  It's  a  perfectly  lovely  view,"  she  said.  "  No 
wonder  you  wanted  me  to  see  it." 

"  Naturally,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  "  wanted  you  to 
see  it." 

Marjorie,  with  a  skill  her  mother  might  have 
envied,  wriggled  into  a  half-sitting  position  in  an 
embrasure  and  concentrated  herself  upon  the  broad 
wooded  undulations  that  went  about  the  horizon,  and 
Mr.  Magnet  mopped  his  face  with  surreptitious  ges- 
tures, and  took  deep  restoring  breaths. 

"  I've  always  wanted  to  bring  you  here,"  he  said, 
ever  since  I  found  it  in  the  spring." 


104  MARRIAGE 

"  It  was  very  kind  of  you,  Mr.  Magnet,"  said 
Marjorie. 

"  You  see,"  he  explained,  "  whenever  I  see  any- 
thing fine  or  rich  or  splendid  or  beautiful  now,  I  seem 
to  want  it  for  you."  His  voice  quickened  as  though 
he  were  repeating  something  that  had  been  long  in 
his  mind.  "  I  wish  I  could  give  you  all  this  country. 
I  wish  I  could  put  all  that  is  beautiful  in  the  world  at 
your  feet." 

He  watched  the  effect  of  this  upon  her  for  a 
moment. 

"  Marjorie,"  he  said,  "  did  you  really  mean  what 
you  told  me  the  other  day,  that  there  was  indeed  no 
hope  for  me?  I  have  a  sort  of  feeling  I  bothered  you 
that  day,  that  perhaps  you  didn't  mean  all " 

He  stopped  short. 

"  I  don't  think  I  knew  what  I  meant,"  said  Mar- 
jorie, and  Magnet  gave  a  queer  sound  of  relief  at 
her  words.  "  I  don't  think  I  know  what  I  mean  now. 
I  don't  think  I  can  say  I  love  you,  Mr.  Magnet.  I 
would  if  I  could.  I  like  you  very  much  indeed,  I 
think  you  are  awfully  kind,  you're  more  kind  and 
generous  than  anyone  I  have  ever  known.  .  .  .  '; 

Saying  he  was  kind  and  generous  made  her 
through  some  obscure  association  of  ideas  feel  that 
he  must  have  understanding.  She  had  an  impulse  to 
put  her  whole  case  before  him  frankly.  "  I  wonder," 
she  said,  "  if  you  can  understand  what  it  is  to  be  a 
girl." 

Then  she  saw  the  absurdity  of  her  idea,  of  any 
such  miracle  of  sympathy.  He  was  entirely  concen- 
trated upon  the  appeal  he  had  come  prepared  to 
make. 

"  Marjorie,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  ask  you  to  love  me 
yet.  All  I  ask  is  that  you  shouldn't  decide  not  to 
love  me." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    105 

Marjorie  became  aware  of  Theodore,  hotly  fol- 
lowed by  Daffy,  in  the  churchyard  below.  "  I  knot* 
he's  up  there,"  Theodore  was  manifestly  saying. 

Marjorie  faced  her  lover  gravely. 

"  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  said',  "  I  will  certainly 
promise  you  that." 

"  I  would  rather  be  your  servant,  rather  live  fo*r 
your  happiness,  than  do  anything  else  in  all  the 
world,"  said  Mr.  Magnet.  "  If  you  would  trust  your 
life  to  me,  if  you  would  deign — ."  He  paused  to 
recover  his  thread.  "  If  you  would  deign  to  let  me 
make  life  what  it  should  be  for  you,  take  every  car? 
from  your  shoulders,  face  every  responsibility " 

Marjorie  felt  she  had  to  hurry.  She  could  almost 
feel  the  feet  of  Theodore  coming  up  that  tower. 

"  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  said,  "  you  don't  understand. 
You  don't  realize  what  I  am.  You  don't  know  how 
unworthy  I  am — what  a  mere  ignorant  child " 

"  Let  me  be  judge  of  that!"  cried  Mr.  Magnet. 

They  paused  almost  like  two  actors  who  listen 
for  the  prompter.  It  was  only  too  obvious  that 
both  were  aware  of  a  little  medley  of  imperfectly  sub- 
dued noises  below.  Theodore  had  got  to  the  ladder 
that  made  the  last  part  of  the  ascent,  and  there  Daffy 
had  collared  him.  "  My  birthday,"  said  Theodore. 
"  Come  down !  You  shan't  go  up  there !"  said  Daffy. 
"You  mustn't ,  Theodore!"  "Why  not?"  There 
was  something  like  a  scuffle,  and  whispers.  Then  it 
would  seem  Theodore  went — reluctantly  and  with 
protests.  But  the  conflict  receded. 

"Marjorie!"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  as  though  there 
had  been  no  pause.  "  if  you  would  consent  only  to 
make  an  experiment,  if  you  would  try  to  love  me. 
Suppose  you  tried  an  engagement.  I  do  not  care 
how  long  I  waited.  .  .  ." 


106  MARRIAGE 

He  paused.  "  Will  you  try  ?"  he  urged  upon  her 
distressed  silence. 

She  felt  as  though  she  forced  the  word.  "  Yes!" 
she  said  in  a  very  low  voice. 

Then  it  seemed  to  her  that  Mr.  Magnet  leapt  upon 
her.  She  felt  herself  pulled  almost  roughly  from 
the  embrasure,  and  he  had  kissed  her.  She  strug- 
gled in  his  embrace.  "  Mr.  Magnet '"  she  said.  He 
lifted  her  face  and  kissed  her  lips.  "Marjorie!'  he 
said,  and  she  had  partly  released  herself. 

"  Oh  don't  kiss  me,"  she  cried,  "  don't  kiss  me 
yet!" 

"  But  a  kiss !" 

"  I  don't  like  it." 

"  I  beg  your  pardon !"  he  said.  "  I  forgot . 

But  you  .  .  .  You  ...  I  couldn't  help  it." 

She  was  suddenly  wildly  sorry  for  what  she  had 
done.  She  felt  she  was  going  to  cry,  to  behave  ab- 
surdly. 

"  I  want  to  go  down,"  she  said. 

"  Marjorie,  you  have  made  me  the  happiest  of 
men!  All  my  life,  all  my  strength  I  will  spend  in 
showing  you  that  you  have  made  no  mistake  in  trust- 
ing me— 

"  Yes,"  she  said,  "  yes,"  and  wondered  what  she 
could  say  or  do.  It  seemed  to  him  that  her  shrinking 
pose  was  the  most  tenderly  modest  thing  he  had  ever 
seen. 

"  Oh  my  dear !"  he  said,  and  restrained  himself 
and  took  her  passive  hand  and  kissed  it. 

"  I  want  to  go  down  to  them !  "  she  insisted. 

He  paused  on  the  topmost  rungs  of  the  ladder, 
looking  unspeakable  things  at  her.  Then  he  turned 
to  go  down,  and  for  the  second  time  in  her  life  she 
saw  that  incipient  thinness 

"  I  am  sure  you  will  never  be  sorry,"  he  said.  .  » 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    107 

They  found  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pope  in  the  church- 
yard. Mr.  Pope  was  reading  with  amusement  for 
the  third  time  an  epitaph  that  had  caught  his 

fancy — 

"Lands  ever  bright,  days  ever  fair, 
And  yet  we  weep  that  he  is  there." 

he  read.  "You  know  that's  really  Good.  That  ought 
to  be  printed  somewhere." 

Mrs.  Pope  glanced  sharply  at  her  daughter's 
white  face,  and  found  an  enigma.  Then  she  looked  at 
Mr.  Magnet. 

There  was  no  mistake  about  Mr.  Magnet.  Mar- 
jorie  had  accepted  him,  whatever  else  she  had  felt  or 
done. 


§  14 

Marjorie's  feelings  for  the  rest  of  the  day  are 
only  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  supposition  that  she 
was  overwrought.  She  had  a  preposterous  reaction. 
She  had  done  this  thing  with  her  eyes  open  after  days 
of  deliberation,  and  now  she  felt  as  though  she  was 
caught  in  a  trap.  The  clearest  thing  in  her  mind 
was  that  Mr.  Magnet  had  taken  hold  of  her  and 
kissed  her,  kissed  her  on  the  lips,  and  that  presently 
he  would  do  it  again.  And  also  she  was  asking  her- 
self with  futile  reiteration  why  she  had  got  into  debt 
at  Oxbridge?  Why  she  had  got  into  debt?  For  such 
silly  little  things  too ! 

Nothing  definite  was  said  in  her  hearing  about 
the  engagement,  but  everybody  seemed  to  understand. 
Mr.  Pope  was  the  most  demonstrative,  he  took  oc- 
casion to  rap  her  hard  upon  the  back,  his  face 
crinkled  with  a  resolute  kindliness.  "  Ah !"  he  said? 
"  Sly  Maggots !" 


108  MARRIAGE 

He  also  administered  several  resounding  blows 
to  Magnet's  shoulder  blades,  and  irradiated  the  party 
with  a  glow  of  benevolent  waggery.  Marjorie  sub- 
mitted without  an  answer  to  these  paternal  intima- 
tions. Mrs.  Pope  did  no  more  than  watch  her 
daughter.  Invisible  but  overwhelming  forces  were 
busy  in  bringing  Marjorie  and  her  glowing  lover 
alone  together  again.  It  happened  at  last,  as  he  was 
departing;  she  was  almost  to  her  inflamed  imagina- 
tion thrust  out  upon  him,  had  to  take  him  to  the 
gate ;  and  there  in  the  shadows  of  the  trees  he  kissed 
her  "good  night "  with  passionate  effusion. 

"  Madge,"  he  said,  "  Madge!" 

She  made  no  answer.  She  submitted  passively  to 
his  embrace,  and  then  suddenly  and  dexterously 
disengaged  herself  from  him,  ran  in,  and  without 
saying  good-night  to  anyone  went  to  her  room  to 
bed. 

Mr.  Pope  was  greatly  amused  by  this  departure 
from  the  customary  routine  of  life,  and  noted  it 
archly. 

When  Daffy  came  up  Marjorie  was  ostentatious- 
ly going  to  sleep.  .  .  . 

As  she  herself  was  dropping  off  Daffy  became 
aware  of  an  odd  sound,  somehow  familiar,  and  yet 
surprising  and  disconcerting. 

Suddenly  wide  awake  again,  she  started  up.  Yes 
there  was  no  mistake  about  it !  And  yet  it  was  very 
odd. 

"Madge,  what's  up?" 

No  answer. 

"  I  say!  you  aren't  crying,  Madge,  are  you?" 

Then  after  a  long  interval :  "  Madge!" 

An  answer  came  in  a  muffled  voice,  almost  as  if 
Marjorie  had  something  in  her  mouth.  "  Oh  shut 
it,  old  Daffy." 


PROPOSALS  OF  MR.  MAGNET    109 

"  But  Madge?"  said  Daffy  after  reflection. 

"  Shut  it.  Do  shut  it !  Leave  me  alone,  I  say  ! 
Can't  you  leave  me  alone?  Oh!" — and  for  a  moment 
she  let  her  sobs  have  way  with  her — "  Daffy,  don't 
worry  me.  Old  Daffy !  Please!" 

Daffy  sat  up  for  a  long  time  in  the  stifled  silence 
that  ensued,  and  then  like  a  sensible  sister  gave  it  up, 
and  composed  herself  again  to  slumber.  .  .  . 

Outside  watching  the  window  in  a  state  of  nebu- 
lous ecstasy,  was  Mr.  Magnet,  moonlit  and  dewy.  It 
was  a  high  serene  night  with  a  growing  moon  and  a 
scattered  company  of  major  stars,  and  if  no  choir 
of  nightingales  sang  there  was  at  least  a  very  active 
nightjar.  "  More  than  I  hoped,"  whispered  Mr. 
Magnet,  "  more  than  I  dared  to  hope."  He  was  very 
sleepy,  but  it  seemed  to  him  improper  to  go  to  bed 
on  such  a  night — on  such  an  occasion. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE  MAN  WHO  FELL  OUT  OF  THE  SKY 


FOR  the  next  week  Marjorie  became  more  nearly 
introspective  than  she  had  ever  been  in  her  life  be- 
fore. She  began  to  doubt  her  hitherto  unshaken  con- 
viction that  she  was  a  single,  consistent  human  being. 
She  found  such  discords  and  discrepancies  between 
mood  and  mood,  between  the  conviction  of  this  hour 
and  the  feeling  of  that,  that  it  seemed  to  her  she  was 
rather  a  collection  of  samples  of  emotion  and  atti- 
tude than  anything  so  simple  as  an  individual. 

For  example,  there  can  be  no  denying  there  was 
one  Marjorie  in  the  bundle  who  was  immensely  set 
up  by  the  fact  that  she  was  engaged,  and  going  to  be 
at  no  very  remote  date  mistress  of  a  London  house. 
She  was  profoundly  Plessingtonian,  and  quite  the 
vulgarest  of  the  lot.  The  new  status  she  had  attained 
and  the  possibly  beautiful  house  and  the  probably 
successful  dinner-parties  and  the  arrangements  and 
the  importance  of  such  a  life  was  the  substance  of 
this  creature's  thought.  She  designed  some  queenly 
dresses.  This  was  the  Marjorie  most  in  evidence  when 
it  came  to  talking  with  her  mother  and  Daphne.  I 
am  afraid  she  patronized  Daphne,  and  ignored  the 
fact  that  Daphne,  who  had  begun  with  a  resolute 
magnanimity,  was  becoming  annoyed  and  resentful. 

And  she  thought  of  things  she  might  buy,  and  the 
jolly  feeling  of  putting  them  about  and  making  fine 
effects  with  them.  One  thing  she  told  Daphne,  she 
had  clearly  resolved  upon  ;  the  house  should  be  always 
full  and  brimming  over  with  beautiful  flowers.  "  I've 

110 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  111 

always  wished  mother  would  have  more  flowers — and 
not  keep  them  so  long  when  she  has  them  .  .  .  3 

Another  Marjorje  in  the  confusion  of  her  mind 
was  doing  her  sincerest,  narrow  best  to  appreciate 
and  feel  grateful  for  and  return  the  devotion  of  Mr. 
Magnet.  This  Marjorie  accepted  and  even  elabor- 
ated his  views,  laid  stress  on  his  voluntary  subjection, 
harped  upon  his  goodness,  brought  her  to  kiss  him. 

"  I  don't  deserve  all  this  love,"  this  side  of  Mar- 
jorie told  Magnet.  "  But  I  mean  to  learn  to  love 
you " 

"  My  dear  one !  "  cried  Magnet,  and  pressed  her 
hand.  .  .  . 

A  third  Marjorie  among  the  many  was  an  al- 
together acuter  and  less  agreeable  person.  She  was  a 
sprite  of  pure  criticism,  and  in  spite  of  the  utmost 
efforts  to  suppress  her,  she  declared  night  and  day  in 
the  inner  confidences  of  Marjorie's  soul  that  she  did 
not  believe  in  Mr.  Magnet's  old  devotion  at  all.  She 
was  anti-Magnet,  a  persistent  insurgent.  She  was 
dreadfully  unsettling.  It  was  surely  this  Marjorie 
that  wouldn't  let  the  fact  of  his  baldness  alone,  and 
who  discovered  and  insisted  upon  a  curious  unbeauti- 
ful  flatness  in  his  voice  whenever  he  was  doing  his 
best  to  speak  from  the  heart.  And  as  for  this  de- 
votion, what  did  it  amount  to?  A  persistent  un- 
imaginative besetting  of  Marjorie,  a  growing  air  of 
ownership,  an  expansive,  indulgent,  smiling  disposi- 
tion to  thwart  and  control.  And  he  was  always 
touching  her !  Whenever  he  came  near  her  she  would 
wince  at  the  freedoms  a  large,  kind  hand  might  take 
with  her  elbow  or  wrist,  at  a  possible  sudden,  clumsy 
pat  at  some  erring  strand  of  hair. 

Then  there  was  an  appraising  satisfaction  in  his 
eye. 

On  the  third  day  of  their  engagement  he  began, 


112  MARRIAGE 

quite  abruptly,  to  call  her  "  Magsy."  "  We'll  end 
this  scandal  of  a  Girl  Pope,"  he  said.  "  Magsy 
Magnet,  you'll  be — M.M.  No  women  M.P.'s  for  us, 
Magsy.  .  .  ." 

She  became  acutely  critical  of  his  intellectual 
quality.  She  listened  with  a  new  alertness  to  the 
conversations  at  the  dinner-table,  the  bouts  of  wit 
with  her  father.  She  carried  off  utterances  and 
witticism  for  maturer  reflection.  She  was  amazed  to 
find  how  little  they  could  withstand  the  tests  and 
acids  of  her  mind.  So  many  things,  such  wide  and 
interesting  fields,  he  did  not  so  much  think  about  as 
cover  with  a  large  enveloping  shallowness.  .  .  . 

He  came  strolling  around  the  vicarage  into  the 
garden  one  morning  about  eleven,  though  she  had  not 
expected  him  until  lunch-time;  and  she  was  sitting 
with  her  feet  tucked  up  on  the  aged  but  still  practica- 
ble garden-seat  reading  Shaw's  "  Common  Sense  of 
Municipal  Trading."  He  came  and  leant  over  the 
back  of  the  seat,  and  she  looked  up,  said  "  Good 
morning.  Isn't  it  perfectly  lovely?"  and  indicated 
bj  a  book  still  open  that  her  interest  in  it  remained 
alive. 

".What's  the  book,  Magsy?"  he  asked,  took  it 
out  of  her  slightly  resisting  hand,  closed  it  and  read 
the  title.  "  Urn,"  he  said;  "  Isn't  this  a  bit  stiff  for 
little  women's  brains?" 

All  the  rebel  Marjories  were  up  in  arms  at  that. 

"  Dreadful  word,  '  Municipal.'  I  don't  like  it." 
He  shook  his  head  with  a  grimace  of  humorous  dis- 
taste. 

"  I  suppose  women  have  as  good  brains  as  men," 
said  Marjorie,  "  if  it  comes  to  that." 

"Better,"  said  Magnet.  "That's  why  they 
shouldn't  trouble  about  horrid  things  like  Municipal 
and  Trading.  .  .  .  On  a  day  like  this !" 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  113 

"  Don't  you  think  this  sort  of  thing  is  inter- 
esting?" 

"  Oh !"  he  said,  and  flourished  the  book.  "  Come  I 
And  besides — Shaw!" 

"  He  makes  a  very  good  case." 

"  But  he's  such  a — mountebank." 

"  Does  that  matter  ?  He  isn't  a  mountebank 
there." 

"  He's  not  sincere.  I  doubt  if  you  had  a  serious 
book  on  Municipal  Trading,  Magsy,  whether  you'd 
make  head  or  tail  of  it.  It's  a  stiff  subject.  Shaw 
just  gets  his  chance  for  a  smart  thing  or  so.  ... 
I'd  rather  you  read  a  good  novel." 

He  really  had  the  air  of  taking  her  reading  in 
hand. 

"  You  think  I  ought  not  to  read  an  intelligent 
book." 

"  I  think  we  ought  to  leave  those  things  to  the 
people  who  understand." 

"  But  we  ought  to  understand." 

He  smiled  wisely.  "  There's  a  lot  of  things  you 
have  to  understand,"  he  said,  "  nearer  home  than 
this." 

Marjorie  was  ablaze  now.  "  What  a  silly  thing  to 
say!"  she  cried,  with  an  undergraduate's  freedom. 
"  Really,  you  are  talking  nonsense !  I  read  that  book 
because  it  interests  me.  If  I  didn't,  I  should  read 
something  else.  Do  you  mean  to  suggest  that  I'm 
reading  like  a  child,  who  holds  a  book  upside  down?" 

She  was  so  plainly  angry  that  he  was  taken  aback. 
"  I  don't  mean  to  suggest — "  he  began,  and  turned 
to  greet  the  welcome  presence,  the  interrogative  eye 
of  Mrs.  Pope. 

"  Here  we  are !"  he  said,  "  having  a  quarrel !" 

"Marjorie!"  said  Mrs.  Pope. 


MARRIAGE 

"  Oh,  it's  serious !"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  and  added 
with  a  gleam :  "  It's  about  Municipal  Trading !" 

Mrs.  Pope  knew  the  wicked  little  flicker  in  Mar- 
jorie's  eye  better  than  Mr.  Magnet.  She  had  known 
it  from  the  nursery,  and  yet  she  had  never  quite  mas- 
tered its  meaning.  She  had  never  yet  realized  it  was 
Marjorie,  she  had  always  regarded  it  as  something 
Marjorie,  some  other  Marjorie,  ought  to  keep  under 
control.  So  now  she  adopted  a  pacificatory  tone. 

"  Oh !  lovers'  quarrels,"  she  said,  floating  over  the 
occasion.  "  Lovers'  quarrels.  You  mustn't  ask  me 
to  interfere !" 

Marjorie,  already  a  little  ashamed  of  her  heat, 
thought  for  an  instant  she  ought  to  stand  that,  and 
then  decided  abruptly  with  a  return  to  choler  that  she 
would  not  do  so.  She  stood  up,  and  held  out  her  hand 
for  her  book. 

"  Mr.  Magnet,"  she  said  to  her  mother  with  re- 
markable force  and  freedom  as  she  took  it,  "  has  been 
talking  unutterable  nonsense.  I  don't  call  that  a 
lovers'  quarrel — anyhow." 

Then,  confronted  with  a  double  astonishment,  and 
having  no  more  to  say,  she  picked  up  her  skirt  quite 
unnecessarily,  and  walked  with  a  heavenward  chin 
indoors. 

"  I'm  afraid,"  explained  Mr.  Magnet,  "  I  was  a 
little  too  free  with  one  of  Magsy's  favourite  authors." 

"  Which  is  the  favourite  author  now?"  asked  Mrs. 
Pope,  after  a  reflective  pause,  with  a  mother's  indul- 
gent smile. 

"  Shaw."  He  raised  amused  eyebrows.  "  It's 
just  the  age,  I  suppose." 

"  She's  frightfully  loyal  while  it  lasts,"  said  Mrs. 
Pope.  "  No  one  dare  say  a  word  against  them." 

"  I  think  it's  adorable  of  her,"  said  Mr.  Magnet 
— with  an  answering  loyalty  and  gusto. 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  115 

§2 

The  aviation  accident  occurred  while  Mrs.  Pope, 
her  two  eldest  daughters,  and  Mr.  Magnet  were  play- 
ing golf-croquet  upon  the  vicarage  lawn.  It  was  a 
serene,  hot  afternoon,  a  little  too  hot  to  take  a  game 
seriously,  and  the  four  little  figures  moved  slowly 
over  the  green  and  grouped  and  dispersed  as  the  game 
required.  Mr.  Magnet  was  very  fond  of  golf -croquet, 
he  displayed  a  whimsical  humour  and  much  invention 
at  this  game,  it  was  not  too  exacting  physically ;  and 
he  could  make  his  ball  jump  ino  the  air  in  the  absurd- 
est  manner.  Occasionally  he  won  a  laugh  from  Mar- 
jorie  or  Daffy.  No  one  else  was  in  sight ;  the  pseudo- 
twins  and  Theodore  and  Toupee  were  in  the  barn,  and 
Mr.  Pope  was  six  miles  away  at  Wamping,  lying 
prone,  nibbling  grass  blades  and  watching  a  county 
cricket  match,  as  every  good  Englishman,  who  knows 
what  is  expected  of  him,  loves  to  do.  .  .  .  Click 
went  ball  and  mallet,  and  then  after  a  long  interval, 
click.  It  seemed  incredible  that  anything  could  pos- 
sibly happen  before  tea. 

But  this  is  no  longer  the  world  it  was.  Suddenly 
this  tranquil  scene  was  slashed  and  rent  by  the  sound 
and  vision  of  a  monoplane  tearing  across  the  heavens. 

A  purring  and  popping  arrested  Mr.  Magnet  in 
mid  jest,  and  the  monster  came  sliding  up  the  sky 
over  the  trees  beside  the  church  to  the  east,  already 
near  enough  to  look  big,  a  great  stiff  shape,  big  buff 
sails  stayed  with  glittering  wire,  and  with  two  odd 
little  wheels  beneath  its  body.  It  drove  up  the  sky, 
rising  with  a  sort  of  upward  heaving,  until  the  cro- 
quet players  could  see  the  driver  and  a  passenger 
perched  behind  him  quite  clearly.  It  passed  a  little 
to  the  right  of  the  church  tower  and  only  a  few  yards 
above  the  level  of  the  flagstaff,  there  wasn't  fifty  feet 


116  MARRIAGE 

of  clearance  altogether,  and  as  it  did  so  Marjorie 
could  see  both  driver  and  passenger  making  hasty 
movements.  It  became  immense  and  over-shadowing, 
and  every  one  stood  rigid  as  it  swept  across  the  sun 
above  the  vicarage  chimneys.  Then  it  seemed  to  drop 
twenty  feet  or  so  abruptly,  and  then  both  the  men 
cried  out  as  it  drove  straight  for  the  line  of  poplars 
between  the  shrubbery  and  the  meadow.  "  Oh,  oh, 
OH!"  cried  Mrs.  Pope  and  Daffy.  Evidently  the 
aviator  was  trying  to  turn  sharply;  the  huge  thing 
banked,  but  not  enough,  and  came  about  and  slipped 
away  until  its  wing  was  slashing  into  the  tree  tops 
with  a  thrilling  swish  of  leaves  and  the  snapping  of 
branches  and  stays. 

"  Run !"  cried  Magnet,  and  danced  about  the  lawn, 
and  the  three  ladies  rushed  sideways  as  the  whole 
affair  slouched  down  on  them.  It  came  on  its  edge, 
hesitated  whether  to  turn  over  as  a  whole,  then  crum- 
pled, and  amidst  a  volley  of  smashing  and  snapping 
carne  to  rest  amidst  ploughed-up  turf,  a  clamorous 
stench  of  petrol,  and  a  cloud  of  dust  and  blue  smoke 
within  twenty  yards  of  them.  The  two  men  had 
jumped  to  clear  the  engine,  had  fallen  headlong,  and 
were  now  both  covered  by  the  fabric  of  the  shattered 
wing. 

It  was  all  too  spectacular  for  word  or  speech  until 
the  thing  lay  still.  Even  then  the  croquet  players 
stood  passive  for  awhile  waiting  for  something  to 
happen.  It  took  some  seconds  to  reconcile  their  minds 
to  this  sudden  loss  of  initiative  in  a  monster  that  had 
been  so  recently  and  threateningly  full  of  go.  It 
seemed  quite  a  long  time  before  it  came  into  Mar- 
jorie's  head  that  she  ought  perhaps  to  act  in  some 
way.  She  saw  a  tall  young  man  wriggling  on  all 
fours  from  underneath  the  wreckage  of  fabric.  He 
stared  at  her  rather  blankly.  She  went  forward 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  117 

with  a  vague  idea  of  helping  him.  He  stood  up, 
swayed  doubtfully  on  his  legs,  turned,  and  became 
energetic,  struggling  mysteriously  with  the  edge  of 
the  left  wing.  He  gasped  and  turned  fierce  blue  eyes 
ever  his  shoulder. 

66  Help  me  to  hold  the  confounded  thing  up !"  he 
cried,  with  a  touch  of  irritation  in  his  voice  at  her 
attitude. 

Marjorie  at  once  seized  the  edge  of  the  plane  and 
pushed.  The  second  man,  in  a  peculiar  button- 
shaped  head-dress,  was  lying  crumpled  up  under- 
neath, his  ear  and  cheek  were  bright  with  blood,  and 
there  was  a  streak  of  blood  on  the  ground  near  his 
head. 

"  That's  right.  Can  you  hold  it  if  I  use  only  one 
hand?" 

Marjorie  gasped  "  Yes,"  with  a  terrific  weight  as 
it  seemed  suddenly  on  her  wrists. 

"  Right  O,"  and  the  tall  young  man  had  thrust 
himself  backwards  under  the  plane  until  it  rested  on 
his  back,  and  collared  the  prostrate  man.  "  Keep  it 
up!"  he  said  fiercely  when  Marjorie  threatened  to 
give  way.  He  seemed  to  assume  that  she  was  there 
to  obey  orders,  and  with  much  grunting  and  effort 
he  had  dragged  his  companion  clear  of  the  wreckage. 

The  man's  face  was  a  mass  of  blood,  and  he  was 
sickeningly  inert  to  his  companion's  lugging. 

"  Let  it  go,"  said  the  tall  young  man,  and  Mar- 
jorie thanked  heaven  as  the  broken  wing  flapped 
down  again. 

She  came  helpfully  to  his  side,  and  became  aware 
of  Daffy  and  her  mother  a  few  paces  off.  Magnet — 
it  astonished  her — was  retreating  hastily.  But  he 
had  to  go  away  because  the  sight  of  blood  upset  him 
— so  much  that  it  was  always  wiser  for  him  to  go 
away. 


118  MARRIAGE 

"  Is  he  hurt?"  cried  Mrs.  Pope. 

"  We  both  are,"  said  the  tall  young  man,  and 
then  as  though  these  other  people  didn't  matter  and 
he  and  Marjorie  were  old  friends,  he  said:  "  Can  we 
turn  him  over?" 

"  I  think  so."  Marjorie  grasped  the  damaged 
man's  shoulder  and  got  him  over  skilfully. 

"  Will  you  get  some  water?"  said  the  tall  young 
man  to  Daffy  and  Mrs.  Pope,  in  a  way  that  sent 
Daffy  off  at  once  for  a  pail. 

"  He  wants  water,"  she  said  to  the  parlour-maid 
who  was  hurrying  out  of  the  house. 

The  tall  young  man  had  gone  down  on  his  knees 
by  his  companion,  releasing  his  neck,  and  making  a 
hasty  first  examination  of  his  condition.  "  The  pneu- 
matic cap  must  have  saved  his  head,"  he  said,  throw- 
ing the  thing  aside.  "  Lucky  he  had  it.  He  can't  be 
badly  hurt.  Just  rubbed  his  face  along  the  ground. 
Silly  thing  to  have  come  as  we  did." 

He  felt  the  heart,  and  tried  the  flexibility  of  an 
arm. 

"  That9 s  all  right,"  he  said. 

He  became  judicial  and  absorbed  over  the  prob- 
lems of  his  friend's  side.  "  Um,"  he  remarked.  He 
knelt  back  and  regarded  Marjorie  for  the  first  time. 
"  Thundering  smash,"  he  said.  His  face  relaxed  into 
an  agreeable  smile.  "  He  only  bought  it  last  week." 

"Is  he  hurt?" 

"  Rib,  I  think — or  two  ribs  perhaps.  Stunned 
rather.  All  this — just  his  nose." 

He  regarded  Marjorie  and  Marjorie  him  for  a 
brief  space.  He  became  aware  of  Mrs.  Pope  on  his 
right  hand.  Then  at  a  clank  behind,  he  turned  round 
to  see  Daphne  advancing  with  a  pail  of  water.  The 
two  servants  were  now  on  the  spot,  and  the  odd-job 
man,  and  the  old  lady  who  did  out  the  church,  and 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  110 

Magnet  hovered  doubtfully  in  the  distance.  Sudden- 
ly with  shouts  and  barks  of  sympathetic  glee  the 
pseudo-twins,  Theodore  and  Toupee  shot  out  of  the 
house.  New  thoughts  were  stirring  in  the  young 
aviator.  He  rose,  wincing  a  little  as  he  did  so.  "  I'm 
afraid  I'm  a  little  rude,"  he  said. 

"  I  do  hope  your  friend  isn't  hurt,"  said  Mrs. 
Pope,  feeling  the  duty  of  a  hostess. 

"  He's  not  hurt  much — so  far  as  I  can  see. 
Haven't  we  made  rather  a  mess  of  your  lawn?" 

"  Oh,  not  at  all!"  said  Mrs.  Pope. 

66  We  have.  If  that  is  your  gardener  over  there, 
it  would  be  nice  if  he  kept  back  the  people  who  seem 
to  be  hesitating  beyond  those  trees.  There  will  be 
more  presently.  I'm  afraid  I  must  throw  myself  on 
your  hands."  He  broke  into  a  chuckle  for  a  moment. 
"  I  have,  you  know.  Is  it  possible  to  get  a  doctor? 
My  friend's  not  hurt  so  very  much,  but  still  he  wants 
expert  handling.  He's  Sir  Rupert  Solomonson, 
from " — he  jerked  his  head  back — "  over  beyond 
Tunbridge  Wells.  My  name's  Trafford." 

"  I'm  Mrs.  Pope  and  these  are  my  daughters." 

Trafford  bowed.  "  We  just  took  the  thing  out 
for  a  lark,"  he  said. 

Marjorie  had  been  regarding  the  prostrate  man. 
His  mouth  was  a  little  open,  and  he  showed  beautiful 
teeth.  Apart  from  the  dry  blood  upon  him  he  was 
not  an  ill-looking  man.  He  was  manifestly  a  Jew,  a 
square-rigged  Jew  ( you  have  remarked  of  course  that 
there  are  square-rigged  Jews,  whose  noses  are  within 
bounds,  and  fore-and-aft  Jews,  whose  noses  aren't), 
with  not  so  much  a  bullet-head  as  a  rounoVshot, 
cropped  like  the  head  of  a  Capuchin  monkey.  Sud- 
denly she  was  down  and  had  his  head  on  her  knee, 
with  a  quick  movement  that  caught  Trafford's  eye. 
"He's  better,"  she  said.  "His  eyelids  flickered. 
Daffy,  bring  the  water." 


120  MARRIAGE 

She  had  felt  a  queer  little  repugnance  at  first  with 
this  helpless  man,  but  now  that  professional  nurse 
who  lurks  in  the  composition  of  so  many  women,  was 
uppermost.  "  Give  me  your  handkerchief,"  she  said 
to  Trafford,  and  with  Daffy  kneeling  beside  her  and 
also  interested,  and  Mrs.  Pope  a  belated  but  more 
experienced  and  authoritative  third,  Sir  Rupert  was 
soon  getting  the  best  of  attention. 

"  Wathall  ..."  said  Sir  Rupert  suddenly, 
and  tried  again :  "  Wathall."  A  third  effort  gave 
"  Wathall  about,  eh?" 

"  If  we  could  get  him  into  the  shade,"  said 
Marjorie. 

"  Woosh,"  cried  Sir  Rupert.     "  Weeeooo !" 

"  That's  all  right,"  said  Trafford.  "  It's  only  a 
rib  or  two." 

"  Eeeeeyoooo !"  said  Sir  Rupert. 

"  Exactly.  We're  going  to  carry  you  out  of  the 
glare." 

"  Don't  touch  me,"  said  Sir  Rupert.     "  Gooo." 

It  took  some  little  persuasion  before  Sir  Rupert 
would  consent  to  be  moved,  and  even  then  he  was  for 
a  time — oh !  crusty.  But  presently  Trafford  and  the 
two  girls  had  got  him  into  the  shade  of  a  large  bush 
close  to  where  in  a  circle  of  rugs  and  cushions  the  tea 
things  lay  prepared.  There  they  camped.  The  help- 
ful odd- job  man  was  ordered  to  stave  off  intruders 
from  the  village;  water,  towels,  pillows  were  forth- 
coming. Mr.  Magnet  reappeared  as  tentative  assist- 
ance, and  Solomonson  became  articulate  and  brave 
and  said  he'd  nothing  but  a  stitch  in  his  side.  In  his 
present  position  he  wasn't  at  all  uncomfortable.  Only 
he  didn't  want  any  one  near  him.  He  enforced  that 
by  an  appealing  smile.  The  twins,  invited  to  fetch 
the  doctor,  declined,  proffering  Theodore.  They 
had  conceived  juvenile  passions  for  the  tall  young 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  121 

man,  and  did  not  want  to  leave  him.  He  certainly 
had  a  very  nice  face.  So  Theodore  after  walking 
twice  round  the  wreckage,  tore  himself  away  and 
departed  on  Rom's  bicycle.  Enquiry  centred  on 
Solomonson  for  a  time.  His  face,  hair  and  neck 
were  wet  but  no  longer  bloody,  and  he  professed 
perfect  comfort  so  long  as  he  wasn't  moved,  and  no 
one  came  too  near  him.  He  was  very  clear  about 
that  though  perfectly  polite,  and  scrutinized  their 
faces  to  see  if  they  were  equally  clear.  Satisfied  upon 
this  point  he  closed  his  eyes  and  spoke  no  more.  He 
looked  then  like  a  Capuchin  monkey  lost  in  pride. 
There  came  a  pause.  Every  one  was  conscious  of 
having  risen  to  an  emergency  and  behaved  well  under 
unusual  circumstances.  The  young  man's  eye  rested 
on  the  adjacent  tea-things,  lacking  nothing  but  the 
coronation  of  the  teapot. 

"  Why  not,"  he  remarked,  "  have  tea?" 

"  If  you  think  your  friend "  began  Mrs. 

Pope. 

"  Oh !  he's  all  right.  Aren't  you,  Solomonson  ? 
There's  nothing  more  now  until  the  doctor." 

"  Only  want  to  be  left  alone,"  said  Solomonson, 
and  closed  his  heavy  eyelids  again. 

Mrs.  Pope  told  the  maids,  with  an  air  of  dismissal, 
to  get  tea. 

"  We  can  keep  an  eye  on  him,"  said  Trafford. 

Marjorie  surveyed  her  first  patient  with  a  pretty 
unconscious  mixture  of  maternal  gravity  and  girlish 
interest,  and  the  twins  to  avoid  too  openly  gloating 
upon  the  good  looks  of  Trafford,  chose  places  and 
secured  cushions  round  the  tea-things,  calculating 
to  the  best  of  their  ability  how  they  might  secure 
the  closest  proximity  to  him.  Mr.  Magnet  and 
Toupee  had  gone  to  stare  at  the  monoplane;  they 
were  presently  joined  by  the  odd- job  man  in  an 


122  MARRIAGE 

interrogative  mood.  "  Pretty  complete  smash,  sir !" 
said  the  odd- job  man,  and  then  perceiving  heads  over 
the  hedge  by  the  churchyard,  turned  back  to  his  duty 
of  sentinel.  Daffy  thought  of  the  need  of  more  cups 
and  plates  and  went  in  to  get  them,  and  Mrs.  Pope 
remarked  that  she  did  hope  Sir  Rupert  was  not  badly 
hurt.  .  .  . 

"  Extraordinary  all  this  is,"  remarked  Mr.  Traf- 
ford.  "  Now,  here  we  were  after  lunch,  twenty  miles 
away — smoking  cigars  and  with  no  more  idea  of  hav- 
ing tea  with  you  than — I  was  going  to  say — flying. 
But  that's  out  of  date  now.  Then  we  just  thought 
we'd  try  the  thing.  .  .  .  Like  a  dream." 

He  addressed  himself  to  Marjorie:  "I  never  feel 
that  life  is  quite  real  until  about  three  days  after 
things  have  happened.  Never.  Two  hours  ago  I  had 
not  the  slightest  intention  of  ever  flying  again." 

"But  haven't  you  flown  before?"  asked  Mrs. 
Pope. 

"  Not  much.  I  did  a  little  at  Sheppey,  but  it's  so 
hard  for  a  poor  man  to  get  his  hands  on  a  machine. 
And  here  was  Solomonson,  with  this  thing  in  his 
hangar,  eating  its  head  off.  "  Let's  take  it  out,"  I 
said,  "  and  go  once  round  the  park.  And  here  we 
are.  ...  I  thought  it  wasn't  wise  for  him  to 
come.  .  .  ." 

Sir  Rupert,  without  opening  his  eyes,  was  under- 
stood to  assent. 

"  Do  you  know,"  said  Trafford,  "  The  sight  of 
your  tea  makes  me  feel  frightfully  hungry." 

"I  don't  think  the  engine's  damaged?"  he  said 
cheerfully,  "  do  you?"  as  Magnet  joined  them.  "  The 
ailerons  are  in  splinters,  and  the  left  wing's  not  much 
better.  But  that's  about  all  except  the  wheels.  One 
falls  so  much  lighter  than  you  might  suppose — from 
the  smash.  .  .  .  Lucky  it  didn't  turn  over.  Then, 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  123 

you  know,  the  engine  comes  on  the  top  of  you,  and 
you're  done." 

§3 

The  doctor  arrived  after  tea,  with  a  bag  and  a 
stethoscope  in  a  small  coffin-like  box,  and  the  Popes 
and  Mr.  Magnet  withdrew  while  Sir  Rupert  was 
carefully  sounded,  tested,  scrutinized,  questioned, 
watched  and  examined  in  every  way  known  to  medical 
science.  The  outcome  of  the  conference  was  pres- 
ently communicated  to  the  Popes  by  Mr.  Trafford 
and  the  doctor.  Sir  Rupert  was  not  very  seriously 
injured,  but  he  was  suffering  from  concussion  and 
shock,  two  of  his  ribs  were  broken  and  his  wrist 
sprained,  unless  perhaps  one  of  the  small  bones  was 
displaced.  He  ought  to  be  bandaged  up  and  put  to 
bed.  .  .  . 

"  Couldn't  we — "  said  Mrs.  Pope,  but  the  doctor 
assured  her  his  own  house  was  quite  the  best  place. 
There  Sir  Rupert  could  stay  for  some  days.  At 
present  the  cross-country  journey  over  the  Downs 
or  by  the  South  Eastern  Railway  would  be  needlessly 
trying  and  painful.  He  would  with  the  Popes' 
permission  lie  quietly  where  he  was  for  an  hour  or  so, 
and  then  the  doctor  would  come  with  a  couple  of  men 
and  a  carrying  bed  he  had,  and  take  him  off  to  his 
own  house.  There  he  would  be,  as  Mr.  Trafford  said, 
"  as  right  as  ninepence,"  and  Mr.  Trafford  could  put 
up  either  at  the  Red  Lion  with  Mr.  Magnet  or  in  the 
little  cottage  next  door  to  the  doctor.  (Mr.  Traf- 
ford elected  for  the  latter  as  closer  to  his  friend.) 
As  for  the  smashed  aeroplane,  telegrams  would  be 
sent  at  once  to  Sir  Rupert's  engineers  at  Chesilbury, 
and  they  would1  have  all  that  cleared  away  by  midday 
to-morrow. 


124  MARRIAGE 

The  doctor  departed;  Sir  Rupert,  after  stimu- 
lants, closed  his  eyes,  and  Mr.  Trafford  seated  him- 
self at  the  tea-things  for  some  more  cake,  as  though 
introduction  by  aeroplane  was  the  most  regular  thing 
in  the  world. 

He  had  very  pleasant  and  easy  manners,  an  entire 
absence  of  self-consciousness,  and  a  quick  talkative 
disposition  that  made  him  very  rapidly  at  home  with 
everybody.  He  described  all  the  sensations  of  flight, 
his  early  lessons  and  experiments,  and  in  the  utmost 
detail  the  events  of  the  afternoon  that  had  led  to  this 
disastrous  adventure.  He  made  his  suggestion  of 
"  trying  the  thing  "  seem  the  most  natural  impulse 
in  the  world.  The  bulk  of  the  conversation  fell  on 
him;  Mr.  Magnet,  save  for  the  intervention  of  one 
or  two  jests,  was  quietly  observant;  the  rest  were  well 
disposed  to  listen.  And  as  Mr.  Trafford  talked  his 
eye  rested  ever  and  again  on  Marjorie  with  the 
faintest  touch  of  scrutiny  and  perplexity,  and  she, 
too,  found  a  curious  little  persuasion  growing  up  in 
her  mind  that  somewhere,  somehow,  she  and  he  had 
met  and  had  talked  rather  earnestly.  But  how  and 
where  eluded  her  altogether.  .  .  . 

They  had  sat  for  an  hour — the  men  from  the 
doctor's  seemed  never  coming — when  Mr.  Pope  re- 
turned unexpectedly  from  his  cricket  match,  which 
had  ended  a  little  prematurely  in  a  rot  on  an  over- 
dry  wicket.  He  was  full  of  particulars  of  the  day's 
play,  and  how  Wiper  had  got  a  most  amazing  catch 
and  held  it,  though  he  fell;  how  Jenk«  had  deliber- 
ately bowled  at  a  man's  head,  he  believed,  and  little 
Gibbs  thrown  a  man  out  from  slip.  He  was  burning 
to  tell  all  this  in  the  utmost  detail  to  Magnet  and  his 
family,  so  that  they  might  at  least  share  the  retro- 
spect of  his  pleasure.  He  had  thought  out  rather  a 
good  pun  on  Wiper,  and  he  was  naturally  a  little 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  125 

thwarted  to  find  all  this  good,  rich  talk  crowded1  out 
by  a  more  engrossing  topic. 

At  the  sight  of  a  stranger  grouped  in  a  popular 
manner  beside  the  tea-things,  he  displayed  a  slight 
acerbity,  which  was  if  anything  increased  by  the  dis- 
covery of  a  prostrate  person  with  large  brown  eyes 
and  an  expression  of  Oriental  patience  and  disdain, 
in  the  shade  of  a  bush  near  by.  At  first  he  seemed 
scarcely  to  grasp  Mrs.  Pope's  explanations,  and  re- 
garded Sir  Ruport  with  an  expression  that  bordered 
on  malevolence.  Then,  when  his  attention  was  direct- 
ed to  the  smashed  machine  upon  the  lawn,  he  broke 
out  into  a  loud  indignant :  "  Good  God !  What  next?" 

He  walked  towards  the  wreckage,  disregarding 
Mr.  Trafford  beside  him.  "  A  man  can't  go  away 
from  his  house  for  an  hour!"  he  complained. 

"  I  can  assure  you  we  did  all  we  could  to  prevent 
it,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Ought  never  to  have  had  it  to  prevent,"  said 
Mr.  Pope.  "  Is  your  friend  hurt  ?" 

"  A  rib — and  shock,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Well — he  deserves  it,"  said  Mr.  Pope.  "  Rather 
than  launch  myself  into  the  air  in  one  of  those  in- 
fernal things,  I'd  be  stood  against  a  wall  and  shot." 

"  Tastes  differ,  of  course,"  said  Trafford,  with 
unruffled  urbanity. 

"  You'll  have  all  this  cleared  away,55  said  Mr. 
Pope. 

"  Mechanics — oh !  a  complete  break-down  party 
— are  speeding  to  us  in  fast  motors,"  said  Trafford. 
"  Thanks  to  the  kindness  of  your  domestic  in  taking 
a  telegram  for  me." 

"  Hope  they  won't  kill  any  one,"  said  Mr.  Pope, 
and  just  for  a  moment  the  conversation  hung  fire. 
"  And  your  friend?"  he  asked. 


126  MARRIAGE 

"  He  goes  in  the  next  ten  minutes  —  well,  whenever 
the  litter  comes  from  the  doctor's.  Poor  old  Solo- 
mons on  !" 

"  Solomonson?" 

"  Sir  Rupert." 

"  Oh!"  said  Mr.  Pope.  "Is  that  the  Pigmenta- 
tion Solomonson?" 

"  I  believe  he  does  do  some  beastly  company  of 
that  sort,"  said  Trafford.  "  Isn't  it  amazing  we 
didn't  smash  our  engine?" 

Sir  Rupert  Solomonson  was  indeed  a  familiar 
name  to  Mr.  Pope.  He  had  organized  the  exploita- 
tion of  a  number  of  pigment  and  bye-product  patents, 
and  the  ordinary  and  deferred  shares  of  his  syndi- 
cate has  risen  to  so  high  a  price  as  to  fill  Mr.  Pope 
with  the  utmost  confidence  in  their  future  ;  indeed  he 
had  bought  considerably,  withdrawing  capital  to  do 
so  from  an  Argentine  railway  whose  stock  had  awak- 
ened his  distaste  and  a  sort  of  moral  aversion  by 
slumping  heavily  after  a  bad  wheat  and  linseed  har- 
vest. This  discovery  did  much  to  mitigate  his  first 
asperity,  his  next  remark  to  Trafford  was  almost 
neutral,  and  he  was  even  asking  Sir  Rupert  whether 
he  could  do  anything  to  make  him  comfortable,  when 
the  doctor  returned  with  a  litter,  borne  by  four  has- 
tily compiled  bearers. 


Some  brightness  seemed  to  vanish  when  the  buoy- 
ant Mr.  Trafford,  still  undauntedly  cheerful,  limped 
off  after  his  more  injured  friend,  and  disappeared 
through  the  gate.  Marjorie  found  herself  in  a  world 
whose  remaining  manhood  declined  to  see  anything 
but  extreme  annoyance  in  this  gay,  exciting  rupture 
of  the  afternoon.  "Good  God!"  said  Mr.  Pope. 
"What  next?  What  next?" 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  127 

"  Registration,  I  hope,"  said  Mr.  Magnet, — "  and 
relegation  to  the  desert  of  Sahara." 

"  One  good  thing  about  it,"  said  Mr.  Pope — "  it 
all  wastes  petrol.  And  when  the  petrol  supply  gives 
out — they're  done." 

"  Certainly  we  might  all  have  been  killed !  "  said 
Mrs.  Pope,  feeling  she  had  to  bear  her  witness  against 
their  visitors,  and  added :  "  If  we  hadn't  moved  out 
of  the  way,  that  is." 

There  was  a  simultaneous  movement  towards  the 
shattered  apparatus,  about  which  a  small  contingent 
of  villagers,  who  had  availed  themselves  of  the  with- 
drawal of  the  sentinel,  had  now  assembled. 

"  Look  at  it !"  said  Mr.  Pope,  with  bitter  hostil- 
ity. "Look  at  it!" 

Everyone  had  anticipated  his  command. 

"  They'll  never  come  to  anything,"  said  Mr. 
Pope,  after  a  pause  of  silent  hatred. 

"  But  they  have  to  come  to  something,"  said 
Marjorie. 

"  They've  come  to  smash !"  said  Mr.  Magnet, 
with  the  true  humorist's  air. 

"  But  consider  the  impudence  of  this  invasion,  the 
wild — objectionableness  of  it!" 

"  They're  nasty  things,"  said  Mr.  Magnet. 
"Nasty  things!" 

A  curious  spirit  of  opposition  stirred  in  Mar- 
jorie. It  seemed  to  her  that  men  who  play  golf-cro- 
quet and  watch  cricket  matches  have  no  business  to 
contemn  men  who  risk  their  lives  in  the  air.  She 
sought  for  some  controversial  opening. 

"  Isn't  the  engine  rather  wonderful  ?"  she  re- 
marked. 

Mr.  Magnet  regarded  the  engine  with  his  head  a 
little  on  one  side.  "  It's  the  usual  sort,"  he  said. 

"  There  weren't  engines  like  that  twenty  years 
ago." 


128  MARRIAGE 

"  There  weren't  people  like  you  twenty  years 
ago,"  said  Mr.  Magnet,  smiling  wisely  and  kindly, 
and  turned  his  back  on  the  thing. 

Mr.  Pope  followed  suit.  He  was  filled  with  the 
bitter  thought  that  he  would  never  now  be  able  to  tell 
the  history  of  the  remarkable  match  he  had  witnessed. 
It  was  all  spoilt  for  him — spoilt  for  ever.  Every- 
thing was  disturbed  and  put  out. 

"  They've  left  us  our  tennis  lawn,"  he  said,  with 
a  not  unnatural  resentment  passing  to  invitation. 
"What  do  you  say,  Magnet?  Now  you've  begun 
the  game  you  must  keep  it  up?" 

"  If  Marjorie,  or  Mrs.  Pope,  or  Daffy  .  .  .  ?" 
said  Magnet. 

Mrs.  Pope  declared  the  house  required  her.  And 
so  with  the  gravest  apprehensions,  and  an  insincere 
compliment  to  their  father's  energy,  Daffy  and  Mar- 
jorie made  up  a  foursome  for  that  healthy  and  in- 
vigorating game.  But  that  evening  Mr.  Pope  got 
his  serve  well  into  the  bay  of  the  sagging  net  almost 
at  once,  and  with  Marjorie  in  the  background  taking 
anything  he  left  her,  he  won  quite  easily,  and  every- 
thing became  pleasant  again.  Magnet  gloated  upon 
Marjorie  and  served  her  like  a  missionary  giving 
Bibles  to  heathen  children,  he  seemed  always  looking 
at  her  instead  of  the  ball,  and  except  for  a  slight 
disposition  on  the  part  of  Daffy  to  slash,  nothing 
could  have  been  more  delightful.  And  at  supper  Mr. 
Pope,  rather  crushing  his  wife's  attempt  to  recapitu- 
late the  more  characteristic  sayings  and  doings  of 
Sir  Rupert  and  his  friend,  did  after  all  succeed  in 
giving  every  one  a  very  good  idea  indeed  of  the  more 
remarkable  incidents  of  the  cricket  match  at  Wamp- 
ing,  and  made  the  pun  he  had  been  accustomed  to 
use  upon  the  name  of  Wiper  in  a  new  and  improved 
form.  A  general  talk  about  cricket  and  the  Im- 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  129 

mense  Good  of  cricket  followed.  Mr.  Pope  said 
he  would  make  cricket-playing  compulsory  for  every 
English  boy. 

Everyone  it  seemed  to  Marjorie  was  forgetting 
that  dark  shape  athwart  the  lawn,  and  all  the  im- 
mense implication  of  its  presence,  with  a  deliberate 
and  irrational  skill,  and  she  noted  that  the  usual 
move  towards  the  garden  at  the  end  of  the  evening 
was  not  made. 

§  5 

In  the  night  time  Marjorie  had  a  dream  that  she 
was  flying  about  in  the  world  on  a  monoplane  with 
Mr.  Trafford  as  a  passenger. 

Then  Mr.  Trafford  disappeared,  and  she  was  fly- 
ing about  alone  with  a  curious  uneasy  feeling  that  in 
a  minute  or  so  she  would  be  unable  any  longer  to 
manage  the  machine. 

Then  her  father  and  Mr.  Magnet  appeared  very 
far  below,  walking  about  and  disapproving  of  her. 
Mr.  Magnet  was  shaking  his  head  very,  very  sagely, 
and  saying:  "  Rather  a  stiff  job  for  little  Marjorie," 
and  her  father  was  saying  she  would  be  steadier  when 
she  married.  And  then,  she  wasn't  clear  how,  the 
engine  refused  to  work  until  her  bills  were  paid,  and 
she  began  to  fall,  and  fall,  and  fall  towards  Mr. 
Magnet.  She  tried  frantically  to  pay  her  bills.  She 
was  falling  down  the  fronts  of  skyscrapers  and  preci- 
pices— and  Mr.  Magnet  was  waiting  for  her  below 
with  a  quiet  kindly  smile  that  grew  wider  and  wider 
and  wider.  .  .  . 

She  woke  up  palpitating. 

§6 

Next  morning  a  curious  restlessness  came  upon 
Marjorie.  Conceivably  it  was  due  to  the  absence  of 


130  MARRIAGE 

Magnet,  who  had  gone  to  London  to  deliver  his  long 
promised  address  on  The  Characteristics  of  English 
Humour  to  the  Literati  Club.  Conceivably  she  miss- 
ed his  attentions.  But  it  crystallized  out  in  the  early 
afternoon  into  the  oddest  form,  a  powerful  craving 
to  go  to  the  little  town  of  Pensting,  five  miles  off,  on 
the  other  side  of  Buryhamstreet,  to  buy  silk  shoelaces. 

She  decided  to  go  in  the  donkey  cart.  She  com- 
municated her  intention  to  her  mother,  but  she  did 
not  communicate  an  equally  definite  intention  to  be 
reminded  suddenly  of  Sir  Rupert  Solomonson  as  she 
was  passing  the  surgery,  and  make  an  inquiry  on  the 
spur  of  the  moment — it  wouldn't  surely  be  anything 
but  a  kindly  and  justifiable  impulse  to  do  that.  She 
might  see  Mr.  Trafford  perhaps,  but  there  was  no 
particular  harm  in  that. 

It  is  also  to  be  remarked  that  finding  Theodore  a 
little  disposed  to  encumber  her  vehicle  with  his  pres- 
ence she  expressed  her  delight  at  being  released  from 
the  need  of  going,  and  abandoned  the  whole  expedi- 
tion to  him — knowing  as  she  did  perfectly  well  that  if 
Theodore  hated  anything  more  than  navigating  the 
donkey  cart  alone,  it  was  going  unprotected  into  a 
shop  to  buy  articles  of  feminine  apparel — until  he 
chucked  the  whole  project  and  went  fishing — if  one 
can  call  it  fishing  when  there  are  no  fish  and  the 
fisherman  knows  it — in  the  decadent  ornamental 
water. 

And  it  is  also  to  be  remarked  that  as  Marjorie 
approached  the  surgery  she  was  seized  with  an  ab- 
surd and  powerful  shyness,  so  that  not  only  did  she 
not  call  at  the  surgery,  she  did  not  even  look  at  the 
surgery,  she  gazed  almost  rigidly  straight  ahead, 
telling  herself,  however,  that  she  merely  deferred  that 
kindly  impulse  until  she  had  bought  her  laces.  And 
so  it  happened  that  about  half  a  mile  beyond  the  end 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  131 

of  Buryhamstreet  she  came  round  a  corner  upon 
Trafford,  and  by  a  singular  fatality  he  also  was 
driving  a  donkey,  or,  rather,  was  tracing  a  fan-like 
pattern  on  the  road  with  a  donkey's  hoofs.  It  was  a 
very  similar  donkey  to  Marjorie's,  but  the  vehicle 
was  a  governess  cart,  and  much  smarter  than  Mar- 
jorie's turn-out.  His  ingenuous  face  displayed  great 
animation  at  the  sight  of  her,  and  as  she  drew  along- 
side he  hailed  her  with  an  almost  unnatural  ease  of 
manner. 

"  Hullo !"  he  cried.  "  I'm  taking  the  air.  You 
seem  to  be  able  to  drive  donkeys  forward.  How  do 
you  do  it?  I  can't.  Never  done  anything  so  danger- 
ous in  my  life  before.  I've  just  been  missed  by  two 
motor  cars,  and  hung  for  a  terrible  minute  with  my 
left  wheel  on  the  very  verge  of  an  unfathomable 
ditch.  I  could  hear  the  little  ducklings  far,  far  below, 
and  bits  of  mould  dropping.  I  tried  to  count  before 
the  splash.  Aren't  you — white?" 

"  But  why  are  you  doing  it  ?" 

"  One  must  do  something.  I'm  bandaged  up  and 
can't  walk.  It  hurt  my  leg  more  than  I  knew — your 
doctor  says.  Solomonson  won't  talk  of  anything  but 
how  he  feels,  and  7  don't  care  a  rap  how  he  feels.  So 
I  got  this  thing  and  came  out  with  it." 

Marjorie  made  her  inquiries.  There  came  a  little 
pause. 

"  Some  day  no  one  will  believe  that  men  were  ever 
so  foolish  as  to  trust  themselves  to  draught  animals," 
he  remarked.  "  Hullo !  Look  out !  The  horror  of 
it!" 

A  large  oil  van — a  huge  drum  on  wheels — motor- 
driven,  had  come  round  the  corner,  and  after  a  pre- 
liminary and  quite  insufficient  hoot,  bore  down  upon 
them,  and  missing  Trafford  as  it  seemed  by  a  miracle, 
swept  past.  Both  drivers  did  wonderful  things  with 


132  MARRIAGE 

whips  and  reins,  and  found  themselves  alone  in  the 
road  again,  with  their  wheels  locked  and  an  indefinite 
future. 

"  I  leave  the  situation  to  you,"  said  Trafford. 
"  Or  shall  we  just  sit  and  talk  until  the  next  motor 
car  kills  us  ?" 

"  We  ought  to  make  an  effort,"  said  Marjorie, 
cheerfully,  and  descended  to  lead  the  two  beasts. 

Assisted  by  an  elderly  hedger,  who  had  been  tak- 
ing a  disregarded  interest  in  them  for  some  time,  she 
separated  the  wheels  and  got  the  two  donkeys  abreast. 
The  old  hedger's  opinion  of  their  safety  on  the  king's 
highway  was  expressed  by  his  action  rather  than  his 
words;  he  directed  the  beasts  towards  a  shady  lane 
that  opened  at  right  angles  to  the  road.  He  stood  by 
their  bridles  while  Marjorie  resumed  her  seat. 

"  It  seems  to  me  clearly  a  case  for  compromise," 
said  Trafford.  "  You  want  to  go  that  way,  I  want 
to  go  that  way.  Let  us  both  go  this  way.  It  is  by 
such  arrangements  that  civilization  becomes  possible." 

He  dismissed  the  hedger  generously  and  resumed 
his  reins. 

"  Shall  we  race?"  he  asked. 

"  With  your  leg?"  she  inquired. 

"  No ;  with  the  donkeys.  I  say,  this  is  rather  a 
lark.  At  first  I  thought  it  was  both  dangerous  and 
dull.  But  things  have  changed.  I  am  in  beastly  high 
spirits.  I  feel  there  will  be  a  cry  before  night;  but 

still,  I  am 1  wanted  the  companionship  of  an 

unbroken  person.  It's  so  jolly  to  meet  you  again." 

"Again?" 

"  After  the  year  before  last." 

66  After  the  year  before  last  ?" 

"  You  didn't  know,"  said  Trafford,  "  I  had  met 
you  before?  How  aggressive  I  must  have  seemed! 
Well,  /  wasn't  quite  clear.  I  spent  the  greater  part 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  133 

of  last  night — my  ankle  being  foolish  in  the  small 
hours — in  trying  to  remember  how  and  where." 

"  I  don't  remember,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  I   remembered   you  very   distinctly,   and   some 
things  I  thought  about  you,  but  not  where  it  had 
happened.     Then  in  the  night  I  got  it.     It  is  a  puz- 
zle, isn't  it?     You  see,  I  was  wearing  a  black  gown, 
and  I  had  been  out  of  the  sunlight  for  some  months 
— and  my  eye,  I  remember  it  acutely,  was  bandaged. 
I'm  usually  bandaged  somewhere. 
*I  was  a  King  in  Babylon 
And  you  were  a  Christian  slav«' 

— I  mean  a  candidate." 

Mar j  orie  remembered  suddenly.  "  You're  Pro- 
fessor Trafford." 

"  Not  in  this  atmosphere.  But  I  am  at  the  Rome- 
ike  College.  And  as  soon  as  I  recalled  examining 
you  I  remembered  it — minutely.  You  were  intelli- 
gent, though  unsound — about  cryo-hydrates  it  was. 
Ah,  you  remember  me  now.  As  most  young  women 
are  correct  by  rote  and  unintelligent  in  such  ques- 
tions, and  as  it  doesn't  matter  a  rap  about  anything 
of  that  sort,  whether  you  are  correct  or  not,  as  long 

as  the  mental  gesture  is  right "  He  paused  for  a 

moment,  as  though  tired  of  his  sentence.  "  I  remem- 
bered you." 

He  proceeded  in  his  easy  and  detached  manner, 
that  seemed  to  make  every  topic  possible,  to  tell  her 
his  first  impressions  of  her,  and  show  how  very  dis- 
tinctly indeed  he  remembered  her. 

"  You  set  me  philosophizing.  I'd  never  examined 
a  girls'  school  before,  and  I  was  suddenly  struck  by 
the  spectacle  of  the  fifty  of  you.  What's  going  to 
become  of  them  all?" 

"  I  thought,"  he  went  on,  "  how  bright  you  were, 
and  how  keen  and  eager  you  were — you,  I  mean,  in 


134  MARRIAGE 

particular — and  just  how  certain  it  was  your  bright- 
ness and  eagerness  would  be  swallowed  up  by  some 
silly  ordinariness  or  other — stuffy  marriage  or  stuffy 
domestic  duties.  The  old,  old  story — done  over  again 
with  a  sort  of  threadbare  badness.  (Nothing  to  say 
against  it  if  it's  done  well.)  I  got  quite  sentimental 
and  pathetic  about  life's  breach  of  faith  with  women. 
Odd,  isn't  it,  how  one's  mind  runs  on.  But  that's 
what  I  thought.  It's  all  come  back  to  me." 

Marjorie's  bright,  clear  eye  came  round  to  him. 
"  I  don't  see  very  much  wrong  with  the  lot  of  wo- 
men," she  reflected.  "  Things  are  different  nowa- 
days. Anyhow " 

She  paused. 

"  You  don't  want  to  be  a  man?" 

"  No!" 

She  was  emphatic. 

"  Some  of  us  cut  more  sharply  at  life  than  you 
think,"  he  said,  plumbing  her  unspoken  sense. 

She  had  never  met  a  man  before  who  understood 
just  how  a  girl  can  feel  the  slow  obtuseness  of  his  sex. 
It  was  almost  as  if  he  had  found  her  out  at  something. 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  perhaps  you  do,"  and  looked 
at  him  with  an  increased  interest. 

"I'm  half-feminine,  I  believe,"  he  said.  "For 
instance,  I've  got  just  a  woman's  joy  in  textures  and 
little  significant  shapes.  I  know  how  you  feel  about 
that.  I  can  spend  hours,  even  now,  in  crystal  gazing 
— I  don't  mean  to  see  some  silly  revelation  of  some 
silly  person's  proceedings  somewhere,  but  just  for  the 
things  themselves.  I  wonder  if  you  have  ever  been  in 
the  Natural  History  Museum  at  South  Kensington, 
and  looked  at  Ruskin's  crystal  collection?  I  saw  it 
when  I  was  a  boy,  and  it  became — I  can't  help  the 
word — an  obsession.  The  inclusions  like  moss  and 
like  trees,  and  all  sorts  of  fantastic  things,  and  the 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  135 

cleavages  and  enclosures  with  little  bubbles,  and  the 
lights  and  shimmer — What  were  we  talking  about? 
Oh,  about  the  keen  way  your  feminine  perceptions 
cut  into  things.  And  yet  somehow  I  was  throwing 
contempt  on  the  feminine  intelligence.  I  don't  do 
justice  to  the  order  of  my  thoughts.  Never  mind. 
We've  lost  the  thread.  But  I  wish  you  knew  my 
mother." 

He  went  on  while  Marjorie  was  still  considering 
the  proper  response  to  this. 

"  You  see,  I'm  her  only  son  and  she  brought  me 
up,  and  we  know  each  other — oh!  very  well.  She 
helps  with  my  work.  She  understands  nearly  all  of  it. 
She  makes  suggestions.  And  to  this  day  I  don't 
know  if  she's  the  most  original  or  the  most  parasitic 
of  creatures.  And  that's  the  way  with  all  women  and 
girls,  it  seems  to  me.  You're  as  critical  as  light,  and 
as  undiscriminating.  ...  I  say,  do  I  strike  you  as 
talking  nonsense?" 

"  Not  a  bit,"  said  Marjorie.  "  But  you  do  go 
rather  fast." 

"  I  know,"  he  admitted.  "  But  somehow  you 
excite  me.  I've  been  with  Solomonson  a  week,  and 
he's  dull  at  all  times.  It  was  that  made  me  take  out 
that  monoplane  of  his.  But  it  did  him  no  good." 

He  paused. 

"  They  told  me  after  the  exam.,"  said  Marjorie, 
"  you  knew  more  about  crystallography — than  any- 
one." 

"Does  that  strike  you  as  a  dull  subject?" 

"  No,"  said  Marjorie,  in  a  tone  that  invited  jus- 
tifications. 

"  It  isn't.  I  think — naturally,  that  the  world  one 
goes  into  when  one  studies  molecular  physics  is  quite 
the  most  beautiful  of  Wonderlands.  ...  I  can 
assure  you  I  work  sometimes  like  a  man  who  is  ex- 


136  MARRIAGE 

ploring  a  magic  palace.  .  .  .  Do  you  know  any- 
thing of  molecular  physics?" 

"  You  examined  me,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  The  sense  one  has  of  exquisite  and  wonderful 
rhythms — just  beyond  sound  and  sight !  And  there's 
a  taunting  suggestion  of  its  being  all  there,  displayed 
and  confessed,  if  only  one  were  quick  enough  to  see 
it.  Why,  for  instance,  when  you  change  the  compo- 
sition of  a  felspar  almost  imperceptibly,  do  the 
angles  change?  What's  the  correspondence  between 
the  altered  angle  and  the  substituted  atom?  Why 
does  this  bit  of  clear  stuff  swing  the  ray  of  light  so 
much  out  of  its  path,  and  that  swing  it  more?  Then 
what  happens  when  crystals  gutter  down,  and  go 
into  solution.  The  endless  launching  of  innumerable 
little  craft.  Think  what  a  clear  solution  must  be  if 
only  one  had  ultra-microscopic  eyes  and  could  see 
into  it,  see  the  extraordinary  patternings,  the  swim- 
ming circling  constellations.  And  then  the  path  of 
a  ray  of  polarized  light  beating  through  it !  It  takes 
me  like  music.  Do  you  know  anything  of  the  effects 
of  polarized  light,  the  sight  of  a  slice  of  olivine- 
gabbro  for  instance  between  crossed  Nicols  ?" 

"  I've  seen  some  rock  sections,"  said  Marjorie. 
"  I  forget  the  names  of  the  rocks." 

"The  colours?" 

"  Oh  yes,  the  colours." 

"  Is  there  anything  else  so  rich  and  beautiful  in 
all  the  world?  And  every  different  mineral  and  every 
variety  of  that  mineral  has  a  different  palette  of 
colours,  a  different  scheme  of  harmonies — and  is 
telling  you  something." 

"  If  only  you  understood." 

"  Exactly.  All  the  ordinary  stuff  of  life — you 
know — the  carts  and  motor  cars  and  dusty  roads  and 
— cinder  sifting,  seems  so  blank  to  me — with  that 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  137 

persuasion  of  swing  and  subtlety  beneath  it  all.  As 
if  the  whole  world  was  fire  and  crystal  and  aquiver — : 
with  some  sort  of  cotton  wrappers  thrown  o(ver 
it.  .  .  ." 

"  Dust  sheets,"  said  Marjorie.     "  I  know." 

"  Or  like  a  diamond  painted  over !" 

"  With  that  sort  of  grey  paint,  very  full  of  body 
—that  lasts." 

"  Yes."  He  smiled  at  her.  "  I  can't  help  apolo- 
getics. Most  people  think  a  professor  of  science  is 
just " 

"  A  professor  of  science." 

"  Yes.  Something  all  pedantries  and  phrases.  I 
want  to  clear  my  character.  As  though  it  is  foolish 
to  follow  a  vortex  ring  into  a  vacuum,  and  wise  to 
whack  at  a  dirty  golf  ball  on  a  suburban  railway 
bank.  Oh,  their  golf!  Under  high  heaven!  .  .  . 
You  don't  play  golf,  do  you,  by  any  chance?" 

"  Only  the  woman's  part,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  And  they  despise  us,"  he  said.  "  Solomonson 
can  hardly  hide  how  he  despises  us.  Nothing  is  more 
wonderful  than  the  way  these  people  go  on  despising 
us  who  do  research,  who  have  this  fever  of  curiosity, 
who  won't  be  content  with — what  did  you  call  those 
wrappers  ?" 

"  Dust  sheets." 

"Yes,  dust  sheets.  What  a  life!  Swaddling 
bands,  dust  sheets  and  a  shroud!  You  know,  re- 
search and  discovery  aren't  nearly  so  difficult  as 
people  think — if  only  you  have  the  courage  to  say 
a  thing  or  try  a  thing  now  and  then  that  it  isn't 

usual  to  say  or  try.  And  after  all "  he  went  off 

at  a  tangent,  "  these  confounded  ordinary  people 
aren't  justified  in  their  contempt.  We  keep  on 
throwing  them  things  over  our  shoulders,  electric 
bells,  telephones,  Marconigrams.  Look  at  the  beau- 


138  MARRIAGE 

tiful  electric  trams  that  come  towering  down  the 
London  streets  at  nightfall,  ships  of  light  in  full 
sail!  Twenty  years  ago  they  were  as  impossible  as 
immortality.  We  conquer  the  seas  for  these — gol- 
fers, puts  arms  in  their  hands  that  will  certainly 
blow  them  all  to  bits  if  ever  the  idiots  go  to  war 
with  them,  come  sailing  out  of  the  air  on  them " 

He  caught  Marjorie's  eye  and  stopped. 

"  Falling  out  of  the  air  on  them,"  corrected  Mar- 
jorie  very  softly. 

"  That  was  only  an  accident,"  said  Mr.  Traf- 
ford.  .  .  . 

So  they  began  a  conversation  in  the  lane  where 
the  trees  met  overhead  that  went  on  and  went  on  like 
a  devious  path  in  a  shady  wood,  and  touched  upon 
all  manner  of  things.  .  .  . 

§7 

In  the  end  quite  a  number  of  people  were  ag- 
grieved by  this  dialogue,  in  the  lane  that  led  no- 
whither.  .  .  . 

Sir  Rupert  Solomonson  was  the  first  to  complain. 
Trafford  had  been  away  "  three  mortal  hours."  No 
one  had  come  near  him,  not  a  soul,  and  there  hadn't 
been  even  a  passing  car  to  cheer  his  ear. 

Sir  Rupert  admitted  he  had  to  be  quiet.  "  But 
not  so  damned  quiet." 

"  I'd  have  been  glad,"  said  Sir  Rupert,  "  if  a  hen 
had  laid  an  egg  and  clucked  a  bit.  You  might  have 
thought  there  had  been  a  Resurrection  or  somethin', 
and  cleared  off  everybody.  Lord !  it  was  deadly.  I'd 
have  sung  out  myself  if  it  hadn't  been  for  these  in- 
fernal ribs.  .  .  .  ' 

Mrs.  Pope  came  upon  the  affair  quite  by  accident. 

"  Well,  Marjorie,"  she  said  as  she  poured  tea  for 
the  family,  "  did  you  get  your  laces  ?" 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY1  139 

"  Never  got  there,  Mummy,"  said  Marjorie,  and 
paused  fatally. 

"  Didn't  get  there !"  said  Mrs.  Pope.  "  That's 
worse  than  Theodore!  Wouldn't  the  donkey  go, 
poor  dear?" 

There  was  nothing  to  colour  about,  and  yet  Mar- 
jorie felt  the  warm  flow  in  neck  and  cheek  and  brow. 
She  threw  extraordinary  quantities  of  candour  into 
her  manner.  "  I  had  a  romantic  adventure,"  she 
said  rather  quietly.  "  I  was  going  to  tell  you." 

(Sensation.) 

"  You  see  it  was  like  this,"  said  Marjorie.  "  I 
ran  against  Mr.  Trafford.  ..." 

She  drank  tea,  and  pulled  herself  together  for  a 
lively  description  of  the  wheel-locking  and  the  sub- 
sequent conversation,  a  bright  ridiculous  account 
which  made  the  affair  happen  by  implication  on  the 
high  road  and  not  in  a  byeway,  and  was  adorned 
with  every  facetious  ornament  that  seemed  likely  to 
get  a  laugh  from  the  children.  But  she  talked  rather 
fast,  and  she  felt  she  forced  the  fun  a  little.  How- 
ever, it  amused  the  children  all  right,  and  Theodore 
created  a  diversion  by  choking  with  his  tea.  From 
first  to  last  Marjorie  was  extremely  careful  to  avoid 
the  affectionate  scrutiny  of  her  mother's  eye.  And 
had  this  lasted  the  whole  afternoon?  asked  Mrs. 
Pope.  Oh,  they'd  talked  for  half-an-hour,"  said 
Marjorie,  or  more,  and  had  driven  back  very  slowly 
together.  "  He  did  all  the  talking.  You  saw  what 
he  was  yesterday.  And  the  donkeys  seemed  too 
happy  together  to  tear  them  away." 

"But  what  was  it  all  about?"  asked  Daffy 
curious. 

"  He  asked  after  you,  Daffy,  most  affectionately," 
said  Marjorie,  and  added,  "  several  times."  (Though 
Trafford  had  as  a  matter  of  fact  displayed  a  quite 
remarkable  disregard  of  all  her  family.) 


140  MARRIAGE 

"  And/'  she  went  on,  getting  a  plausible  idea  at 
_ast,"  "  he  explained  all  about  aeroplanes.  And  all 
that  sort  of  thing.  Has  Daddy  gone  to  Wamping 
for  some  more  cricket?  ..." 

(But  none  of  this  was  lost  on  Mrs.  Pope.) 

§8 

Mr.  Magnet's  return  next  day  was  heralded  by 
nearly  two-thirds  of  a  column  in  the  Times. 

The  Lecture  on  the  Characteristics  of  Humour 
had  evidently  been  quite  a  serious  affair,  and  a  very 
imposing  list  of  humorists  and  of  prominent  people 
associated  with  their  industry  had  accepted  the  hos- 
pitality of  the  Literati. 

Marjorie  ran  her  eyes  over  the  Chairman's  flat- 
tering introduction,  then  with  a  queer  faint  flavour 
of  hostility  she  reached  her  destined  husband's  utter- 
ance. She  seemed  to  hear  the  flat  full  tones  of  his 
voice  as  she  read,  and  automatically  the  desiccated 
sentences  of  the  reporter  filled  out  again  into  those 
rich  quietly  deliberate  unfoldings  of  sound  that  were 
already  too  familiar  to  her  ear. 

Mr.  Magnet  had  begun  with  modest  disavowals. 
"There  was  a  story,  he  said," — so  the  report  began 
— "  whose  hallowed  antiquity  ought  to  protect  it 
from  further  exploitation,  but  he  was  tempted  to 
repeat  it  because  it  offered  certain  analogies  to  the 
present  situation.  There  were  three  characters  in 
the  story,  a  bluebottle  and  two  Scotsmen.  (Laugh- 
ter.) The  bluebottle  buzzed  on  the  pane,  otherwise  a 
profound  silence  reigned.  This  was  broken  by  one 
of  the  Scotsmen  trying  to  locate  the  bluebottle  with 
zoological  exactitude.  Said  this  Scotsman :  '  Sandy, 
I  am  thinking  if  yon  fly  is  a  birdie  or  a  beastie.'  The 
other  replied :  '  Man,  don't  spoil  good  whiskey  with 
religious  conversation.'  (Laughter.)  He  was 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  141 

tempted,  Mr.  Magnet  resumed,  to  ask  himseJ  and 
them  why  it  was  that  they  should  spoil  the  after- 
effects of  a  most  excellent  and  admirably  served  din- 
ner by  an  academic  discussion  on  British  humour. 
At  first  he  was  pained  by  the  thought  that  they 
proposed  to  temper  their  hospitality  with  a  demand 
for  a  speech.  A  closer  inspection  showed  that  he 
was  to  introduce  a  debate  and  that  others  were  to 
speak,  and  that  was  a  new  element  in  their  hospital- 
ity. Further,  he  was  permitted  to  choose  the  subject 
so  that  he  could  bring  their  speeches  within  the 
range  of  his  comprehension.  (Laughter.)  His  was 
an  easy  task.  He  could  make  it  easier;  the  best 
thing  to  do  would  be  to  say  nothing  at  all.  (Laugh- 
ter.)" 

For  a  space  the  reporter  seemed  to  have  omitted 
largely — perhaps  he  was  changing  places  with  his 
relief — and  the  next  sentence  showed  Mr.  Magnet 
engaged  as  it  were  in  revising  a  hortus  siccus  of 
jokes.  "  There  was  the  humour  of  facts  and  situa- 
tions," he  was  saying,  "  or  that  humour  of  expres- 
sion for  which  there  was  no  human  responsibility, 
as  in  the  case  of  Irish  humour;  he  spoke  of  the  hu- 
mour of  the  soil  which  found  its  noblest  utterance  in 
the  bull.  Humour  depended  largely  on  contrast. 
There  was  a  humour  of  form  and  expression  which 
had  many  local  varieties.  American  humour  had 
been  characterized  by  exaggeration,  the  suppression 
of  some  link  in  the  chain  of  argument  or  narrative, 
and  a  wealth  of  simile  and  metaphor  which  had  been 
justly  defined  as  the  poetry  of  a  pioneer  race."  .  .  . 

Marjorie's  attention  slipped  its  anchor,  and 
caught  lower  down  upon :  "  In  England  there  was  a 
near  kinship  between  laughter  and  tears ;  their  men- 
tal relations  were  as  close  as  their  physical.  Abroad 
this  did  not  appear  to  be  the  case.  It  was  different 


142  MARRIAGE 

in  France.  But  perhaps  on  the  whole  it  would  be 
better  to  leave  the  humour  of  France  and  what  some 
people  still  unhappily  chose  to  regard  as  matters 
open  to  controversy— -he  referred  to  choice  of  sub- 
ject— out  of  their  discussion  altogether.  ('  Hear, 
hear,'  and  cheers.)"  .  .  . 

Attention  wandered  again.  Then  she  remarked: 
— it  reminded  her  in  some  mysterious  way  of  a  drop- 
ped hairpin — "  It  was  noticeable  that  the  pun  to  a 
great  extent  had  become  demode.  .  .  . 

At  this  point  the  flight  of  Marjorie's  eyes  down 
the  column  was  arrested  by  her  father's  hand  gently 
but  firmly  taking  possession  of  the  Times.  She  yield- 
ed it  without  reluctance,  turned  to  the  breakfast 
table,  and  never  resumed  her  study  of  the  social 
relaxations  of  humorists.  .  .  . 

Indeed  she  forgot  it.  Her  mind  was  in  a  state  of 
extreme  perplexity.  She  didn't  know  what  to  make 
of  herself  or  anything  or  anybody.  Her  mind  was 
full  of  Trafford  and  all  that  he  had  said  and  done 
and  all  that  he  might  have  said  and  done,  and  it  was 
entirely  characteristic  that  she  could  not  think  of 
Magnet  in  any  way  at  all  except  as  a  bar-like  shadow 
that  lay  across  all  her  memories  and  all  the  bright 
possibilities  of  this  engaging  person. 

She  thought  particularly  of  the  mobile  animation 
of  his  face,  the  keen  flash  of  enthusiasm  in  his 
thoughts  and  expressions.  .  .  . 

It  was  perhaps  more  characteristic  of  her  time 
than  of  her  that  she  did  not  think  she  was  dealing 
so  much  with  a  moral  problem  as  an  embarrassment, 
and  that  she  hadn't  as  yet  felt  the  first  stirrings  of 
self-reproach  for  the  series  of  disingenuous  proceed- 
ings that  had  rendered  the  yesterday's  encounter 
possible.  But  she  was  restless,  wildly  restless  as  a 
bird  whose  nest  is  taken.  She  could  abide  nowhere. 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY;        143 

She  fretted  through  the  morning,  avoided  Daffy  in  a 
marked  manner,  and  inflicted  a  stinging  and  only 
partially  merited  rebuke  upon  Theodore  for  slouch- 
ing, humping  and — of  all  trite  grievances! — not 
washing  behind  his  ears.  As  if  any  chap  washed 
behind  his  ears !  She  thought  tennis  with  the  pseudo- 
twins  might  assuage  her,  but  she  broke  off  after  los- 
ing two  sets ;  and  then  she  went  into  the  garden  to 
get  fresh  flowers,  and  picked  a  large  bunch  and  left 
them  on  the  piano  until  her  mother  reminded  her  of 
them.  She  tried  a  little  Shaw.  She  struggled  with 
an  insane  wish  to  walk  through  the  wood  behind  the 
village  and  have  an  accidental  meeting  with  some- 
one who  couldn't  possibly  appear  but  whom  it  would 
be  quite  adorable  to  meet.  Anyhow  she  conquered 
that. 

She  had  a  curious  and  rather  morbid  indisposi- 
tion to  go  after  lunch  to  the  station  and  meet  Mr. 
Magnet  as  her  mother  wished  her  to  do,  in  order  to 
bring  him  straight  to  the  vicarage  to  early  tea,  but 
here  again  reason  prevailed  and  she  went. 

Mr.  Magnet  arrived  by  the  2.27,  and  to  Mar- 
jorie's  eye  his  alighting  presence  had  an  effect  of 
being  not  s-o  much  covered  with  laurels  as  distended 
by  them.  His  face  seemed  whiter  and  larger  than 
ever.  He  waved  a  great  handful  of  newspapers. 

66  Hullo,  Magsy !"  he  said.  "  They've  given  me  a 
thumping  Press.  I'm  nearer  swelled  head  than  I've 
ever  been,  so  mind  how  you  touch  me !" 

"  We'll  take  it  down  at  croquet,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  They've  cleared  that  thing  away  ?" 

"  And  made  up  the  lawn  like  a  billiard  table," 
she  said. 

"  That  makes  for  skill,"  he  said  waggishly.  "  I 
shall  save  my  head  after  all." 

For  a  moment  he  seemed  to  loom  towards  kissing 


144  MARRIAGE 

her,  but  she  averted  this  danger  by  a  business-like 
concern  for  his  bag.  He  entrusted  this  to  a  porter, 
and  reverted  to  the  triumph  of  over-night  so  soon  as 
they  were  clear  of  the  station.  He  was  overflowing 
with  kindliness  towards  his  fellow  humorists,  who  had 
appeared  in  force  and  very  generously  at  the  ban- 
quet, and  had  said  the  most  charming  things — some 
of  which  were  in  one  report  and  some  in  another,  and 
some  the  reporters  had  missed  altogether — some  of 
the  kindliest. 

"  It's  a  pleasant  feeling  to  think  that  a  lot  of 
good  fellows  think  you  are  a  good  fellow,"  said  Mr. 
Magnet. 

He  became  solicitous  for  her.  How  had  she  got 
on  while  he  was  away?  She  asked  him  how  one  was 
likely  to  get  on  at  Buryhamstreet ;  monoplanes  didn't 
fall  every  day,  and  as  she  said  that  it  occurred  to  her 
she  was  behaving  meanly.  But  he  was  going  on  to  his 
next  topic  before  she  could  qualify. 

"  I've  got  something  in  my  pocket,"  he  remarked, 
and  playfully :  "  Guess." 

She  did,  but  she  wouldn't.  She  had  a  curious 
sinking  of  the  heart. 

"  I  want  you  to  see  it  before  anyone  else,"  he 
said.  "  Then  if  you  don't  like  it,  it  can  go  back.  It's 
a  sapphire." 

He  was  feeling  nervously  in  his  pockets  and  then 
the  little  box  was  in  her  hand. 

She  hesitated  to  open  it.  It  made  everything  so 
dreadfully  concrete.  And  this  time  the  sense  of 
meanness  was  altogether  acuter.  He'd  bought  this  in 
London ;  he'd  brought  it  down,  hoping  for  her  ap- 
proval. Yes,  it  was — horrid.  But  what  was  she 
to  do? 

"  It's — awfully  pretty,"  she  said  with  the  glitter- 
ing symbol  in  her  hand,  and  indeed  he  had  gone  to 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  145 

one  of  those  artistic  women  who  are  reviving  and 
improving  upon  the  rich  old  Roman  designs.  "  It's 
so  beautifully  made." 

"  I'm  so  glad  you  like  it.    You  really  do  like  it?" 

"  I  don't  deserve  it." 

"Oh!    But  you  do  like  it?" 

"  Enormously." 

"  Ah !    I  spent  an  hour  in  choosing  it." 

She  could  see  him.  She  felt  as  though  she  had 
picked  his  pocket. 

"  Only  I  don't  deserve  it,  Mr.  Magnet.  Indeed 
I  don't.  I  feel  I  am  taking  it  on  false  pretences." 

"  Nonsense,  Magsy.  Nonsense !  Slip  it  on  your 
finger,  girl." 

"  But  I  don't,"  she  insisted. 

He  took  the  box  from  her,  pocketed  it  and  seized 
her  hand.  She  drew  it  away  from  him. 

"  No !"  she  said.  "  I  feel  like  a  cheat.  You  know, 
I  don't — I'm  sure  I  don't  love " 

"  I'll  love  enough  for  two,"  he  said,  and  got  her 
hand  again.  "  No !"  he  said  at  her  gesture,  "  you'll 
wear  it.  Why  shouldn't  you?" 

And  so  Marjorie  came  back  along  the  vicarage 
avenue  with  his  ring  upon  her  hand.  And  Mr.  Pope 
was  evidently  very  glad  to  see  him.  .  .  . 

The  family  was  still  seated  at  tea  upon  rugs 
and  wraps,  and  still  discussing  humorists  at  play, 
when  Professor  Trafford  appeared,  leaning  on  a 
large  stick  and  limping,  but  resolute,  by  the  church 
gate.  "Pish!"  said  Mr.  Pope.  Marjorie  tried  not 
to  reveal  a  certain  dismay,  there  was  dumb,  rich  ap- 
proval in  Daphne's  eyes,  and  the  pleasure  of  Theo- 
dore and  the  pseudo-twins  was  only  too  scandalously 
evident.  "  Hoo-Ray !"  said  Theodore,  with  ill-con- 
cealed relief. 


146  MARRIAGE 

Mrs.  Pope  was  the  incarnate  invocation  of  tact 
as  Trafford  drew  near. 

"  I  hope,"  he  said,  with  obvious  insincerity,  "  I 
don't  invade  you.  But  Solomonson  is  frightfully 
concerned  and  anxious  about  your  lawn,  and  whether 
his  men  cleared  it  up  properly  and  put  things  right." 
His  eye  went  about  the  party  and  rested  on  Mar- 
jorie.  "  How  are  you?"  he  said,  in  a  friendly  voice. 

"  Well,  we  seem  to  have  got  our  croquet  lawn 
back,"  said  Mr.  Pope.  "  And  our  nerves  are  re- 
covering. How  is  Sir  Rupert?" 

"A  little  fractious,"  said  Trafford,  with  the 
ghost  of  a  smile. 

"You'll  take  some  tea?"  said  Mrs.  Pope  in  the 
pause  that  followed. 

"  Thank  you,"  said  Trafford  and  sat  down  in- 
stantly. 

"I  saw  your  jolly  address  in  the  Standard"  he 
said  to  Magnet.  "  I  haven't  read  anything  so  amus- 
ing for  some  time." 

"  Rom  dear,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  "  will  you  take  the 
pot  in  and  get  some  fresh  tea?" 

Mr.  Trafford  addressed  himself  to  the  flattery  of 
Magnet  with  considerable  skill.  He  had  detected  a 
lurking  hostility  in  the  eyes  of  the  two  gentlemen 
that  counselled  him  to  propitiate  them  if  he  meant 
to  maintain  his  footing  in  the  vicarage,  and  now  he 
talked  to  them  almost  exclusively  and  ignored  the 
ladies  modestly  but  politely  in  the  way  that  seems 
natural  and  proper  in  a  British  middle-class  house 
of  the  better  sort.  But  as  he  talked  chiefly  of  the 
improvement  of  motor  machinery  that  had  recently 
been  shown  at  the  Engineering  Exhibition,  he  did 
not  make  that  headway  with  Marjorie's  father  that 
he  had  perhaps  anticipated.  Mr.  Pope  fumed  quiet- 
ly for  a  time,  and  then  suddenly  spoke  out. 


OUT  OF  THK  SKY  147 

"  I'm  no  lover  of  machines,"  he  said  abruptly, 
slashing  across  Mr.  Trafford's  description.  "  All 
our  troubles  began  with  villainous  saltpetre.  I'm 
an  old-fashioned  man  with  a  nose — and  a  neck,  and 
I  don't  want  the  one  offended  or  the  other  broken. 
No,  don't  ask  me  to  be  interested  in  your  valves  and 
cylinders.  What  do  you  say,  Magnet?  It  starts 
machinery  in  my  head  to  hear  about  them.  .  .  ." 

On  such  occasions  as  this  when  Mr.  Pope  spoke 
out,  his  horror  of  an  anti-climax  or  any  sort  of  con- 
tradication  was  apt  to  bring  the  utterance  to  a  cul- 
mination not  always  to  be  distinguished  from  a 
flight.  And1  now  he  rose  to  his  feet  as  he  delivered 
himself. 

"  Who's  for  a  game  of  tennis  ?"  he  said,  "  in 
this  last  uncontaminated  patch  of  air?  I  and  Mar- 
jorie  will  give  you  a  match,  Daffy — if  Magnet  isn't 
too  tired  to  join  you." 

Daffy  looked  at  Marjorie  for  an  instant. 

"We'll  want  you,  Theodore,  to  look  after  the 
balls  in  the  potatoes,"  said  Mr.  Pope  lest  that  in- 
genuous mind  should  be  corrupted  behind  his  back.  .  . 

Mrs.  Pope  found  herself  left  to  entertain  a 
slightly  disgruntled  Trafford.  Rom  and  Syd  hov- 
ered on  the  off  chance  of  notice,  at  the  corner  of  the 
croquet  lawn  nearest  the  tea  things.  Mrs.  Pope  had 
already  determined  to  make  certain  little  matters 
clearer  than  they  appeared  to  be  to  this  agreeable 
but  superfluous  person,  and  she  was  greatly  assisted 
by  his  opening  upon  the  subject  of  her  daughters. 
"  Jolly  tennis  looks,"  he  said. 

"Don't  they?"  said  Mrs.  Pope.  "I  think  it  is 
such  a  graceful  game  for  a  girl." 

Mr.  Trafford  glanced  at  Mrs.  Pope's  face,  but 
her  expression  was  impenetrable. 

"They  both  like   it   and  play  it   so   well,"  she 


148  MARRIAGE 

said.  "  Their  father  is  so  skillful  and  interested  in 
games.  Marjorie  tells  me  you  were  her  examiner 
a  year  or  so  ago." 

"  Yes.  She  struck  my  memory — her  work  stood 
out." 

"  Of  course  she  is  clever,"  said  Mrs.  Pope.  "  Or 
we  shouldn't  have  sent  her  to  Oxbridge.  There  she's 
doing  quite  well — quite  well.  Everyone  says  so.  I 
don't  know,  of  course,  if  Mr.  Magnet  will  let  her 
finish  there." 

"Mr.  Magnet?" 

"  She's  just  engaged  to  him.  Of  course  she's 
frightfully  excited  about  it,  and  naturally  he  wants 
her  to  come  away  and  marry.  There's  very  little 
excuse  for  a  long  engagement.  No." 

Her  voice  died  in  a  musical  little  note,  and  she 
seemed  to  be  scrutinizing  the  tennis  with  an  absorbed 
interest.  "  They've  got  new  balls,"  she  said,  as  if  to 
herself. 

Trafford  had  rolled  over,  and  she  fancied  she 
detected  a  change  in  his  voice  when  it  came.  "  Isn't 
it  rather  a  waste  not  to  finish  a  university  career?" 
he  said. 

"  Oh,  it  wouldn't  be  wasted.  Of  course  a  girl 
like  that  will  be  hand  and  glove  with  her  husband. 
She'll  be  able  to  help  him  with  the  scientific  side  of 
his  jokes  and  all  that.  I  sometimes  wish  it  had  been 
Daffy  who  had  gone  to  college  though.  I  sometimes 
think  we've  sacrificed  Daffy  a  little.  She's  not  the 
bright  quickness  of  Marjorie,  but  there's  something 
quietly  solid  about  her  mind — something  stable.  Per- 
haps I  didn't  want  her  to  go  away  from  me.  .  .  . 
Mr.  Magnet  is  doing  wonders  at  the  net.  He's  just 
begun  to  play — to  please  Marjorie.  Don't  you 
think  he's  a  dreadfully  amusing  man,  Mr.  Trafford? 
He  says  such  quiet  things." 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  149 

§  9 

The  effect  of  this  eclair cissement  upon  Mr.  Traf- 
ford  was  not  what  it  should  have  been.  Properly  he 
ought  to  have  realized  at  once  that  Marjorie  was 
for  ever  beyond  his  aspirations,  and  if  he  found  it 
too  difficult  to  regard  her  with  equanimity,  then  he 
ought  to  have  shunned  her  presence.  But  instead, 
after  his  first  shock  of  incredulous  astonishment,  his 
spirit  rose  in  a  rebellion  against  arranged  facts 
that  was  as  un-English  as  it  was  ungentlemanly.  He 
went  back  to  Solomonson  with  a  mood  of  thoughtful 
depression  giving  place  to  a  growing  passion  of 
indignation.  He  presented  it  to  himself  in  a  general- 
ized and  altruistic  form.  "  What  the  deuce  is  the 
good  of  all  this  talk  of  Eugenics,"  he  asked  himself 
aloud,  "  if  they  are  going  to  hand  over  that  shining 
girl  to  that  beastly  little  area  sneak?" 

He  called  Mr.  Magnet  a  "  beastly  little  area 
sneak !" 

Nothing  could  show  more  clearly  just  how  much 
he  had  contrived  to  fall  in  love  with  Marjorie  during 
his  brief  sojourn  in  Buryhamstreet  and  the  acute- 
ness  of  his  disappointment,  and  nothing  could  be 
more  eloquent  of  his  forcible  and  undisciplined  tem- 
perament. And  out  of  ten  thousand  possible  abusive 
epithets  with  which  his  mind  was  no  doubt  stored, 
this  one,  I  think,  had  come  into  his  head  because  of 
the  alert  watchfulness  with  which  Mr.  Magnet  fol- 
lowed a  conversation,  as  he  waited  his  chance  for 
some  neat  but  brilliant  flash  of  comment.  .  .  . 

Trafforcf,  like  Marjorie,  was  another  of  those  un- 
disciplined young  people  our  age  has  produced  in 
such  significant  quantity.  He  was  just  six-and- 
twenty,  but  the  facts  that  he  was  big  of  build,  had 
as  an  only  child  associated  much  with  grown-up  peo- 


150  MARRIAGE 

pie,  and  was  already  a  conspicuous  success  in  the 
world  of  micro-chemical  research,  had  given  him  the 
self-reliance  and  assurance  of  a  much  older  man.  He 
had  still  to  come  his  croppers  and  learn  most  of  the 
important  lessons  in  life,  and,  so  far,  he  wasn't 
aware  of  it.  He  was  naturally  clean-minded,  very 
busy  and  interested  in  his  work,  and  on  remarkably 
friendly  and  confidential  terms  with  his  mother  who 
kept  house  for  him,  and  though  he  had  had  several 
small  love  disturbances,  this  was  the  first  occasion 
that  anything  of  the  kind  had  ploughed  deep  into 
his  feelings  and  desires. 

Trafford's  father  had  died  early  in  life.  He  had 
been  a  brilliant  pathologist,  one  of  that  splendid 
group  of  scientific  investigators  in  the  middle  Victo- 
rian period  which  shines  ever  more  brightly  as  our 
criticism  dims  their  associated  splendours,  and  he 
had  died  before  he  was  thirty  through  a  momentary 
slip  of  the  scalpel.  His  wife — she  had  been  his  wife 
for  five  years — found  his  child  and  his  memory  and 
the  quality  of  the  life  he  had  made  about  her  too 
satisfying  for  the  risks  of  a  second  marriage,  and  she 
had  brought  up  her  son  with  a  passionate  belief  in 
the  high  mission  of  research  and  the  supreme  duty 
of  seeking  out  and  expressing  truth  finely.  And 
here  he  was,  calling  Mr.  Magnet  a  "  beastly  little 
area  sneak." 

The  situation  perplexed  him.  Marjorie  perplex- 
ed him.  It  was,  had  he  known  it,  the  beginning  for 
him  of  a  lifetime  of  problems  and  perplexities.  He 
was  absolutely  certain  she  didn't  love  Magnet.,  Why, 
then,  had  she  agreed  to  marry  him?  Such  pressures 
and  temptations  as  he  could  see  about  her  seemed 
light  to  him  in  comparison  with  such  an  under- 
taking. 

Were  they  greater  than  he  supposed? 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  151 

His  method  of  coming  to  the  issue  of  that  prob- 
lem was  entirely  original.  He  presented  himself 
next  afternoon  with  the  air  of  an  invited  guest, 
drove  Mr.  Pope  who  was  suffering  from  liver,  to  ex- 
postulatory  sulking  in  the  study,  and  expressed  a 
passionate  craving  for  golf-croquet,  in  spite  of  Mrs. 
Pope's  extreme  solicitude  for  his  still  bandaged 
ankle.  He  was  partnered  with  Daffy,  and  for  a 
long  time  he  sought  speech  with  Marjorie  in  vain. 
At  last  he  was  isolated  in  a  corner  of  the  lawn,  and 
with  the  thinnest  pretence  of  inadvertence,  in  spite 
of  Daffy's  despairing  cry  of  "  She  plays  next !"  he 
laid  up  within  two  yards  of  her.  He  walked  across 
to  her  as  she  addressed  herself  to  her  ball,  and 
speaking  in  an  incredulous  tone  and  with  the  air  of 
a  comment  on  the  game,  he  said :  "  I  say,  are  you 
engaged  to  that  chap  Magnet?" 

Marjorie  was  amazed,  but  remarkably  not  of- 
fended. Something  in  his  tone  set  her  trembling. 
She  forgot  to  play,  and  stood  with  her  mallet  hang- 
ing in  her  hand. 

"Punish  him!"  came  the  voice  of  Magnet  from 
afar. 

"  Yes,"  she  said  faintly. 

His  remark  came  low  and  clear.  It  had  a  note  of 
angry  protest.  "  Why?" 

Marjorie,  by  the  way  of  answer,  hit  her  ball  so 
that  it  jumped  and  missed  his,  ricochetted  across  the 
lawn  and  out  of  the  ground  on  the  further  side. 

"  I'm  sorry  if  I've  annoyed  you,"  said  Trafford, 
as  Marjorie  went  after  her  ball,  and  Daffy  thanked 
heaven  aloud  for  the  respite. 

They  came  together  no  more  for  a  time,  and 
Trafford,  observant  with  every  sense,  found  no  clue 
to  the  riddle  of  her  grave,  intent  bearing.  She  played 
very  badly,  and  with  unusual  care  and  delibera- 


152  MARRIAGE 

tion.  He  felt  he  had  made  a  mess  of  things  alto- 
gether, and  suddenly  found  his  leg  was  too  painful 
to  go  on.  "  Partner,"  he  asked,  "  will  you  play  out 
my  ball  for  me?  I  can't  go  on.  I  shall  have  to  go." 

Marjorie  surveyed  him,  while  Daffy  and  Magnet 
expressed  solicitude.  He  turned  to  go,  mallet  in  hand, 
and  found  Marjorie  following  him. 

"  Is  that  the  heavier  mallet?"  she  asked,  and  stood 
before  him  looking  into  his  eyes  and  weighing  a  mal- 
let in  either  hand. 

"  Mr.  Trafford,  you're  one  of  the  worst  examin- 
ers I've  ever  met,"  she  said. 

He  looked  puzzled. 

"  I  don't  know  why"  said  Marjorie,  "  I  wonder 
as  much  as  you.  But  I  am";  and  seeing  the  light 
dawning  in  his  eyes,  she  turned  about,  and  went 
back  to  the  debacle  of  her  game. 

§  10 

After  that  Mr.  Trafford  had  one  clear  desire  in 
his  being  which  ruled  all  his  other  desires.  He  wanted 
a  long,  frank,  unembarrassed  and  uninterrupted  con- 
versation with  Marjorie.  He  had  a  very  strong  im- 
pression that  Marjorie  wanted  exactly  the  same 
thing.  For  a  week  he  besieged  the  situation  in  vain. 
After  the  fourth  day  Solomonson  was  only  kept  in 
Buryhamstreet  by  sheer  will-power,  exerted  with  a 
brutality  that  threatened  to  end  that  friendship 
abruptly.  He  went  home  on  the  sixth  day  in  his 
largest  car,  but  Trafford  stayed  on  beyond  the  limits 
of  decency  to  perform  some  incomprehensible  service 
that  he  spoke  of  as  "  clearing  up." 
"  I  want,"  he  said,  "  to  clear  up." 
"  But  what  is  there  to  clear  up,  my  dear  boy  ?" 
"  Solomonson,  you're  a  pampered  plutocrat," 
said  Trafford,  as  though  everything  was  explained. 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  153 

"  I  don't  see  any  sense  in  it  at  all,"  said1  Solomon- 
son,  and  regarded  his  friend  aslant  with  thick,  black 
eyebrows  raised. 

"  I'm  going  to  stay,"  said  Trafford. 

And  Solomonson  said  one  of  those  unhappy  and 
entirely  disregarded  things  that  ought  never  to  be 
sai(y. 

"  There's  some  girl  in  this,"  said  Solomonson. 

"  Your  bedroom's  always  waiting  for  you  at  Rip- 
lings,"  he  said,  when  at  last  he  was  going  off.  .  .  . 

Trafford's  conviction  that  Marjorie  also  wanted, 
with  an  almost  equal  eagerness,  the  same  opportunity 
for  speech  and  explanations  that  he  desired,  sustain- 
ed him  in  a  series  of  unjustifiable  intrusions  upon 
the  seclusion  of  the  Popes.  But  although  the  manner 
of  Mr.  and  Mrs.  Pope  did  change  considerably  for 
the  better  after  his  next  visit,  it  was  extraordinary 
how  impossible  it  seemed  for  him  and  Marjorie  to 
achieve  their  common  end  of  an  encounter. 

Always  something  intervened. 

In  the  first  place,  Mrs.  Pope's  disposition  to  opti- 
mism had  got  the  better  of  her  earlier  discretions, 
and  a  casual  glance  at  Daphne's  face  when  their 
visitor  reappeared  started  quite  a  new  thread  of 
interpretations  in  her  mind.  She  had  taken  the 
opportunity  of  hinting  at  this  when  Mr.  Pope  asked 
over  his  shirt-stud  that  night,  "  What  the  devil  that 
— that  chauffeur  chap  meant  by  always  calling  in 
the  afternoon." 

"  Now  that  Will  Magnet  monopolizes  Marjorie," 
she  said,  after  a  little  pause  and  a  rustle  or  so,  "  I 
don't  see  why  Daffy  shouldn't  have  a  little  company 
of  her  own  age." 

Mr.  Pope  turned  round  and  stared  at  her.  "I 
didn't  think  of  that,"  he  said.  "But,  anyhow,  I 
don't  like  the  fellow." 


154  MARRIAGE 

"  He  seems  to  be  rather  clever,"  said  Mrs.  Pope, 
"  though  he  certainly  talks  too  much.  And  after  all 
it  was  Sir  Rupert's  aeroplane.  He  was  only  driving 
it  to  oblige." 

"  He'll  think  twice  before  he  drives  another,"  said 
Mr.  Pope,  wrenching  off  his  collar.  .  .  . 

Once  Mrs.  Pope  had  turned  her  imagination  in 
this  more  and  more  agreeable  direction,  she  was 
rather  disposed,  I  am  afraid,  to  let  it  bolt  with  her. 
And  it  was  a  deflection  that  certainly  fell  in  very 
harmoniously  with  certain  secret  speculations  of 
Daphne's.  Trafford,  too,  being  quite  unused  to  any 
sort  of  social  furtiveness,  did  perhaps,  in  order  to 
divert  attention  from  his  preoccupation  with  Mar- 
jorie,  attend  more  markedly  to  Daphne  than  he 
would  otherwise  have  done.  And  so  presently  he 
found  Daphne  almost  continuously  on  his  hands.  So 
far  as  she  was  concerned,  he  might  have  told  her  the 
entire  history  of  his  life,  and  every  secret  he  had  in 
the  world,  without  let  or  hindrance.  Mrs.  Pope,  too, 
showed  a  growing  appreciation  of  his  company,  be- 
came sympathetic  and  confidential  in  a  way  that 
invited  confidence,  and  threw  a  lot  of  light  on  her 
family  history  and  Daffy's  character.  She  had  found1 
Daffy  a  wonderful  study,  she  said.  Mr.  Pope,  too, 
seemed  partly  reconciled  to  him.  The  idea  that, 
after  all,  both  motor  cars  and  monoplane  were  Sir 
Rupert's,  and  not  Trafford's,  had  produced  a  reac- 
tion in  the  latter  gentleman's  favour.  Moreover,  it 
had  occurred  to  him  that  Trafford's  accident  had 
perhaps  disposed  him  towards  a  more  thoughtful 
view  of  mechanical  traction,  and  that  this  tendency 
would  be  greatly  helped  by  a  little  genial  chaff.  So 
that  he  ceased  to  go  indoors  when  Trafford  was 
there,  and  hung  about,  meditating  and  delivering  sly 
digs  at  this  new  victim  of  his  ripe,  old-fashioned 
humour. 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  155 

Nor  did  it  help  Trafford  in  his  quest  for  Mar- 
jorie  and  a  free,  outspoken  delivery  that  the  pseudo- 
twins  considered  him  a  person  of  very  considerable 
charm,  and  that  Theodore,  though  indisposed  to 
"  suck  up  "  to  him  publicly — I  write  here  in  Theo- 
dorese — did  so  desire  intimate  and  solitary  commun- 
ion with  him,  more  particularly  in  view  of  the  chances 
of  an  adventitious  aeroplane  ride  that  seemed  to 
hang  about  him — as  to  stalk  him  persistently — hov- 
ering on  the  verge  of  groups,  playing  a  waiting  game 
with  a  tennis  ball  and  an  old  racquet,  strolling  art- 
lessly towards  the  gate  of  the  avenue  when  the  time 
seemed  ripening  for  his  appearance  or  departure. 

On  the  other  hand,  Marjorie  was  greatly  en- 
tangled by  Magnet. 

Magnet  was  naturally  an  attentive  lover;  he  was 
full  of  small  encumbering  services,  and  it  made  him 
none  the  less  assiduous  to  perceive  that  Marjorie 
seemed  to  find  no  sort  of  pleasure  in  all  the  little 
things  he  did.  He  seemed  to  think  that  if  picking 
the  very  best  rose  he  could  find  for  her  did  not  cause 
a  very  perceptible  brightening  in  her,  then  it  was 
all  the  more  necessary  quietly  to  force  her  racquet 
from  her  hand  and  carry  it  for  her,  or  help  her 
ineffectually  to  cross  a  foot-wide  ditch,  or  offer  to 
read  her  in  a  rich,  abundant,  well  modulated  voice, 
some  choice  passage  from  "  The  Forest  Lovers  "  of 
Mr.  Maurice  Hewlett.  And  behind  these  devotions 
there  was  a  streak  of  jealousy.  He  knew  as  if  by 
instinct  that  it  was  not  wise  to  leave  these  two  hand- 
some young  people  together;  he  had  a  queer  little 
disagreeable  sensation  whenever  they  spoke  to  one 
another  or  looked  at  one  another.  .Whenever  Traf- 
ford and  Marjorie  found  themselves  in  a  group, 
there  was  Magnet  in  the  midst  of  them.  He  knew 


156  MARRIAGE 

fche  value  of  his  Marjorie,  and  did  not  mean  to  lose 
her.  .  .  . 

Being  jointly  baffled  in  this  way  was  oddly  stimu- 
lating to  Marjorie's  and  Trafford's  mutual  predis- 
position. If  you  really  want  to  throw  people 
together,  the  thing  to  do — thank  God  for  Ireland ! — 
is  to  keep  them  apart.  By  the  fourth  day  of  this 
emotional  incubation,  Marjorie  was  thinking  of 
Trafford  to  the  exclusion  of  all  her  reading;  and 
Trafford  was  lying  awake  at  nights — oh,  for  half  an 
hour  and  more — thinking  of  bold,  decisive  ways  of 
getting  at  Marjorie,  and  bold,  decisive  things  to  say 
to  her  when  he  did. 

(But  why  she  should  be  engaged  to  Magnet  con- 
tinued, nevertheless,  to  puzzle,  him  extremely.  It  was 
a  puzzle  to  which  no  complete  solution  was  ever  to 
be  forthcoming.  .  .  .) 

§n 

At  last  that  opportunity  came.  Marjorie  had 
come  with  her  mother  into  the  village,  and  while  Mrs. 
Pope  made  some  purchases  at  the  general  shop  she 
walked  on  to  speak  to  Mrs.  Blythe  the  washerwoman. 
Trafford  suddenly  emerged  from  the  Red  Lion  with 
a  soda  syphon  under  each  arm.  She  came  forward 
smiling. 

"  I  say,"  he  said  forthwith,  "  I  want  to  talk  with 
you — badly." 

"  And  I,"  she  said  unhesitatingly,  "  with  you." 

"  How  can  we  ?" 

"  There's  always  people  about.     It's  absurd." 

"  We'll  have  to  meet." 

"  Yes." 

"  I  have  to  go  away  to-morrow.  I  ought  to  have 
gone  two  days  ago.  Where  can  we  meet?" 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  157 

She  had  it  all  prepared. 

"  Listen/'  she  said.  "  There  is  a  path  runs  from 
our  shrubbery  through  a  little  wood  to  a  stile  on 
the  main  road."  He  nodded.  "  Either  I  will  be  there 
at  three  or  about  half-past  five  or — there's  one  more 
chance.  While  father  and  Mr.  Magnet  are  smoking 
at  nine.  ...  I  might  get  away." 

"Couldn't  I  write?" 

"  No.     Impossible." 

"  I've  no  end  of  things  to  say.    .     .     ." 

Mrs.  Pope  appeared  outside  her  shop,  and  Traf- 
ford  gesticulated  a  greeting  with  the  syphons.  "  All 
right,"  he  said  to  Marjorie.  "  I'm  shopping,"  he 
cried  as  Mrs.  Pope  approached. 

§  12 

All  through  the  day  Marjorie  desired  to  go  to 
Trafford  and  could  not  do  so.  It  was  some  minutes 
past  nine  when  at  last  with  a  swift  rustle  of  skirts 
that  sounded  louder  than  all  the  world  to  her,  she 
crossed  the  dimly  lit  hall  between  dining-room  and 
drawing-room  and  came  into  the  dreamland  of  moon- 
light upon  the  lawn.  She  had  told  her  mother  she 
was  going  upstairs;  at  any  moment  she  might  be 
missed,  but  she  would  have  fled  now  to  Trafford  if 
an  army  pursued  her.  Her  heart  seemed  beating  in 
her  throat,  and  every  fibre  of  her  being  was  aquiver. 
She  flitted  past  the  dining-room  window  like  a  ghost, 
she  did  not  dare  to  glance  aside  at  the  smokers  within, 
and  round  the  lawn  to  the  shrubbery,  and  so  under  a 
blackness  of  trees  to  the  gate  where  he  stood  waiting. 
And  there  he  was,  dim  and  mysterious  and  wonderful, 
holding  the  gate  open  for  her,  and  she  was  breath- 
less, and  speechless,  and  near  sobbing.  She  stood 
before  him  for  a  moment,  her  face  moonlit  and  laced 


158  MARRIAGE 

with  the  shadows  of  little  twigs,  and  then  his  arms 
came  out  to  her. 

"  My  darling,"  he  said,  "  Oh,  my  darling!" 

They  had  no  doubt  of  one  another  or  of  anything 
in  the  world.  They  clung  together;  their  lips  came 
together  fresh  and  untainted  as  those  first  lovers'  in 
the  garden. 

"  I  will  die  for  you,"  he  said,  "  I  will  give  all  the 
world  for  you.  .  .  . " 

They  had  thought  all  through  the  day  of  a  hun- 
dred statements  and  explanations  they  would  make 
when  this  moment  came,  and  never  a  word  of  it  all 
was  uttered.  All  their  anticipations  of  a  highly 
strung  eventful  conversation  vanished,  phrases  of  the 
most  striking  sort  went  like  phantom  leaves  before  a 
gale.  He  held  her  and  she  clung  to  him  between 
laughing  and  sobbing,  and  both  were  swiftly  and 
conclusively  assured  their  lives  must  never  separate 
again. 

§  13 

Marjorie  never  knew  whether  it  was  a  moment  or 
an  age  before  her  father  came  upon  them.  He  had 
decided  to  take  a  turn  in  the  garden  when  Magnet 
could  no  longer  restrain  himself  from  joining  the 
ladies,  and  he  chanced  to  be  stick  in  hand  because 
that  was  his  habit  after  twilight.  So  it  was  he  found 
them.  She  heard  his  voice  falling  through  love  and 
moonlight  like  something  that  comes  out  of  an  im- 
mense distance. 

"  Good  God!"  he  cried,  "  what  next!" 

But  he  still  hadn't  realized  the  worst. 

"  Daffy,"  he  said,  "  what  in  the  name  of  good- 
ness  ?" 

Marjorie  put  her  hands  before  her  face  too  late. 


OUT  OF  THE  SKY  159 

"  Good  Lord !"  he  cried  with  a  rising  inflection, 
"  it's  Madge !" 

Trafford  found  the  situation  difficult.  "  I  should 
explain " 

But  Mr.  Pope  was  giving  himself  up  to  a  tower- 
ing rage.  "  You  damned  scoundrel !"  he  said.  "  What 
the  devil  are  you  doing?5'*  He  seized  Marjorie  by 
the  arm  and  drew  her  towards  him.  "  My  poor  mis- 
guided girl!"  he  said,  and  suddenly  she  was  tensely 
alive,  a  little  cry  of  horror  in  her  throat,  for  her 
father,  at  a  loss  for  words  and  full  of  heroic  rage, 
had  suddenly  swung  his  stick  with  passionate  force, 
and  struck  at  Trafford's  face.  She  heard  the  thud, 
saw  Trafford  wince  and  stiffen.  For  a  perfectly 
horrible  moment  it  seemed  to  her  these  men,  their 
faces  queerly  distorted  by  the  shadows  of  the  branch- 
es in  the  slanting  moonlight,  might  fight.  Then  she 
heard  Trafford's  voice,  sounding  cool  and  hard,  and 
she  knew  that  he  would  do  nothing  of  the  kind.  In 
that  instant  if  there  had  remained  anything  to  win 
in  Marjorie  it  was  altogether  won.  "  I  asked1  your 
daughter  to  meet  me  here,"  he  said. 

"  Be  off  with  you,  sir !"  cried  Mr.  Pope.  "  Don't 
tempt  me  further,  sir,"  and  swung  his  stick  again. 
But  now  the  force  had  gone  out  of  him.  Trafford 
stood  with  a  hand  out  ready  for  him,  and  watched  his 
face. 

"  I  asked  your  daughter  to  meet  me  here,  and  she 
came.  I  am  prepared  to  give  you  any  explana- 
tion  " 

"  If  you  come  near  this  place  again ' 

For  some  moments  Marjorie's  heart  had  been  held 
still,  now  it  was  beating  violently.  She  felt  this  scene 
must  end.  "  Mr.  Trafford,"  she  said,  "  will  you  go. 
Go  now.  Nothing  shall  keep  us  apart !" 

Mr.  Pope  turned  on  her.    "  Silence,  girl !"  he  said. 


160  MARRIAGE 

"  I  shall  come  to  you  to-morrow,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Yes,"  said  Marjorie,  "  to-morrow." 

"Marjorie!"  said  Mr.  Pope,  "  will  you  go  in- 
doors." 

"  I  have  done  nothing " 

"  Be  off,  sir." 

"  I  have  done  nothing " 

"  Will  you  be  off,  sir?  And  you,  Marjorie — will 
you  go  indoors?" 

He  came  round  upon  her,  and  after  one  still 
moment  of  regard  for  Trafford — and  she  looked  very 
beautiful  in  the  moonlight  with  her  hair  a  little  dis- 
ordered and  her  face  alight — she  turned  to  precede 
her  father  through  the  shrubbery. 

Mr.  Pope  hesitated  whether  he  should  remain 
with  Trafford. 

A  perfectly  motionless  man  is  very  disconcerting. 

"  Be  off,  sir,"  he  said  over  his  shoulder,  lowered 
through  a  threatening  second,  and  followed  her. 

But  Trafford  remained  stiffly  with  a  tingling  tem- 
ple down  which  a  little  thread  of  blood  was  running, 
until  their  retreating  footsteps  had  died  down  into 
that  confused  stirring  of  little  sounds  which  makes 
the  stillness  of  an  English  wood  at  night. 

Then  he  roused  himself  with  a  profound  sigh,  and 
put  a  hand  to  his  cut  and  bruised  cheek. 

"  Well!"  he  said. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 

CRISIS 


CRISIS  prevailed  in  Buryhamstreet  that  night.  On 
half  a  dozen  sleepless  pillows  souls  communed  with 
the  darkness,  and  two  at  least  of  those  pillows  were 
wet  with  tears. 

Not  one  of  those  wakeful  heads  was  perfectly 
clear  about  the  origins  and  bearings  of  the  trouble  ; 
not  even  Mr.  Pope  felt  absolutely  sure  of  himself. 
It  had  come  as  things  come  to  people  nowadays,  be- 
cause they  will  not  think  things  out,  much  less  talk 
things  out,  and  are  therefore  in  a  hopeless  tangle  of 
values  that  tightens  sooner  or  later  to  a  knot.  .  .  . 

What  an  uncharted  perplexity,  for  example, 
was  the  mind  of  that  excellent  woman  Mrs.  Pope! 

Poor  lady  !  she  hadn't  a  stable  thing  in  her  head. 
It  is  remarkable  that  some  queer  streak  in  her  com- 
position sympathized  with  Marjorie's  passion  for 
Trafford.  But  she  thought  it  such  a  pity!  She 
fought  that  sympathy  down  as  if  it  were  a  wicked 
thing.  And  she  fought  too  against  other  ideas  that 
rose  out  of  the  deeps  and  did  not  so  much  come  into 
her  mind  as  cluster  at  the  threshold,  the  idea  that 
Marjorie  was  in  effect  grown  up,  a  dozen  queer 
criticisms  of  Magnet,  and  a  dozen  subtle  doubts 
whether  after  all  Marjorie  was  going  to  be  happy 
with  him  as  she  assured  herself  the  girl  would  be. 
(So  far  as  any  one  knew  Trafford  might  be  an  excel- 
lent match!)  And  behind  these  would-be  invaders 
of  her  guarded  mind  prowled  even  worse  ones,  doubts, 
horrible  disloyal  doubts,  about  the  wisdom  and 
kindness  of  Mr.  Pope. 

161 


162  MARRIAGE 

Quite  early  in  life  Mrs.  Pope  had  realized  that  it 
is  necessary  to  be  very  careful  with  one's  thoughts. 
They  lead  to  trouble.  She  had  clipped  the  wings  of 
her  own  mind  therefore  so  successfully  that  all  her 
conclusions  had  become  evasions,  all  her  decisions 
compromises.  Her  profoundest  working  conviction 
was  a  belief  that  nothing  in  the  world  was  of  value 
but  "  tact,"  and  that  the  art  of  living  was  to  "  tide 
things  over."  But  here  it  seemed  almost  beyond 
her  strength  to  achieve  any  sort  of  tiding  over.  .  . 

(Why  couldn't  Mr.  Pope  lie  quiet?) 

Whatever  she  said  or  did  had  to  be  fitted  to  the 
exigencies  of  Mr.  Pope. 

Availing  himself  of  the  privileges  of  matrimony, 
her  husband  so  soon  as  Mr.  Magnet  had  gone  and 
they  were  upstairs  together,  had  explained  the  situa- 
tion with  vivid  simplicity,  and  had  gone  on  at  con- 
siderable length  and  with  great  vivacity  to  enlarge 
upon  his  daughter's  behaviour.  He  ascribed  this 
moral  disaster,  — he  presented  it  as  a  moral  disaster 
of  absolutely  calamitous  dimensions — entirely  to 
Mrs.  Pope's  faults  and  negligences.  Warming  with 
his  theme  he  had  employed  a  number  of  homely  ex- 
pressions rarely  heard  by  decent  women  except  in 
these  sacred  intimacies,  to  express  the  deep  indigna- 
tion of  a  strong  man  moved  to  unbridled  speech  by 
the  wickedness  of  those  near  and  dear  to  him.  Still 
warming,  he  raised  his  voice  and  at  last  shouted  out 
his  more  forcible  meanings,  until  she  feared  the  ser- 
vants and  children  might  hear,  waved  a  clenched  fist 
at  imaginary  Traffords  and  scoundrels  generally, 
and  giving  way  completely  to  his  outraged  virtue, 
smote  and  kicked  blameless  articles  of  furniture  in 
a  manner  deeply  impressive  to  the  feminine  intel- 
ligence. 


CRISIS  163 

Finally  he  sat  down  in  the  little  arm-chair  be- 
tween her  and  the  cupboard  where  she  was  accus- 
tomed to  hang  up  her  clothes,  stuck  out  his  legs  very 
stiffly  across  the  room,  and  despaired  of  his  family 
in  an  obtrusive  and  impregnable  silence  for  an 
enormous  time. 

All  of  which  awakened  a  deep  sense  of  guilt  and 
un worthiness  in  Mrs.  Pope's  mind,  and  prevented  her 
going  to  bed,  but  did  not  help  her  in  the  slightest 
degree  to  grasp  the  difficulties  of  the  situation.  .  . 

She  would  have  lain  awake  anyhow,  but  she  was 
greatly  helped  in  this  by  Mr.  Pope's  restlessness.  He 
was  now  turning  over  from  left  to  right  or  from  right 
to  left  at  intervals  of  from  four  to  seven  minutes, 
and  such  remarks  as  "  Damned  scoundrel !  Get  out 
of  this !"  or  "My  daughter  and  degrade  yourself  in 
this  way !"  or  "  Never  let  me  see  your  face  again !" 
"  Plight  your  troth  to  one  man,  and  fling  yourself 
shamelessly — I  repeat  it,  Marjorie,  shamelessly — 
into  the  arms  of  another!"  kept  Mrs.  Pope  closely 
in  touch  with  the  general  trend  of  his  thoughts. 

She  tried  to  get  together  her  plans  and  percep- 
tions rather  as  though  she  swept  up  dead  leaves  on  a 
gusty  day.  She  knew  that  the  management  of  the 
whole  situation  rested  finally  on  her,  and  that  what- 
ever she  did  or  did  not  do,  or  whatever  arose  to 
thwart  her  arrangements,  its  entire  tale  of  responsi- 
bility would  ultimately  fall  upon  her  shoulders.  She 
wondered  what  was  to  be  done  with  Marjorie,  with 
Mr.  Magnet?  Need  he  know?  Could  that  situation 
be  saved?  Everything  at  present  was  raw  in  her  mind. 
Except  for  her  husband's  informal  communications 
she  did  not  even  know  what  had  appeared,  what 
Daffy  had  seen,  what  Magnet  thought  of  Marjorie's 
failure  to  bid  him  good-night.  For  example,  had 
Mr.  Magnet^  npticed_Mr.  Pope's  profound  disturb- 


164  MARRIAGE 

ance?  She  had  to  be  ready  to  put  a  face  on  things 
before  morning,  and  it  seemed  impossible  she  could 
do  so.  In  times  of  crisis,  as  every  woman  knows,  it 
is  always  necessary  to  misrepresent  everything  to 
everybody,  but  how  she  was  to  dovetail  her  mis- 
representations, get  the  best  effect  from  them,  extract 
a  working  system  of  rights  and  wrongs  from  them, 
she  could  not  imagine.  .  .  . 

(Oh!  she  did  so  wish  Mr.  Pope  would  lie  quiet.) 
But  he  had  no  doubts  of  what  became  him.     He 
had  to  maintain  a  splendid  and  irrational  rage  —  at 
any  cost  —  to  anybody. 


A  few  yards  away,  a  wakeful  Marjorie  con- 
fronted a  joyless  universe.  She  had  a  baffling  reali- 
zation that  her  life  was  in  a  hopeless  mess,  that  she 
really  had  behaved  disgracefully,  and  that  she 
couldn't  for  a  moment  understand  how  it  had  hap- 
pened. She  had  intended  to  make  quite  sure  of 
Trafford  —  and  then  put  things  straight. 

Only  her  father  had  spoilt  everything. 

She  regarded  her  father  that  night  with  a  want 
of  natural  affection  terrible  to  record.  Why  had  he 
come  just  when  he  had,  just  as  he  had?  Why  had 
he  been  so  violent,  so  impossible? 

Of  course,  she  had  no  business  to  be  there.    .    .    . 

She  examined  her  character  with  a  new  unpre- 
cedented detachment.  Wasn't  she,  after  all,  rather 
a  mean  human  being?  It  had  never  occurred  to  her 
before  to  ask  such  a  question.  Now  she  asked  it  with 
only  too  clear  a  sense  of  the  answer.  She  tried  to 
trace  how  these  multiplying  threads  of  meanness  had 
first  come  into  the  fabric  of  a  life  she  had  supposed 
herself  to  be  weaving  in  extremely  bright,  honour- 


CRISIS  165 

able,  and  adventurous  colours.  She  ought,  of  course, 
never  to  have  accepted  Magnet.  .  .  . 

She  faced  the  disagreeable  word;  was  she  a  liar? 

At  any  rate,  she  told  lies. 

And  she'd  behaved  with  extraordinary  meanness 
to  Daphne.  She  realized1  that  now.  She  had  known, 
as  precisely  as  if  she  had  been  told,  how  Daphne 
felt  about  Trafford,  and  she'd  never  given  her  an 
inkling  of  her  own  relations.  She  hadn't  for  a  mo- 
ment thought  of  Daphne.  No  wonder  Daffy  was 
sombre  and  bitter.  Whatever  she  knew,  she  knew 
enough.  She  had  heard  Trafford's  name  in  urgent 
whispers  on  the  landing.  "  I  suppose  you  couldn't 
leave  him  alone,"  Daffy  had  said,  after  a  long  hostile 
silence.  That  was  all.  Just  a  sentence  without  pre- 
lude or  answer  flung  across  the  bedroom,  revealing 
a  perfect  understanding — deeps  of  angry  disillu- 
sionment. Marjorie  had  stared  and  gasped,  and 
made  no  answer. 

Would  she  ever  see  him  again?  After  this  horror 
of  rowdy  intervention?  She  didn't  deserve  to;  she 
didn't  deserve  anything.  .  .  .  Oh,  the  tangle  of  it 
all!  The  tangle  of  it  all!  And  those  bills  at  Ox- 
bridge! She  was  just  dragging  Trafford  down  into 
her  own  miserable  morass  of  a  life. 

Her  thoughts  would  take  a  new  turn.  "  I  love 
him,"  she  whispered  soundlessly.  "  I  would  die  for 
him.  I  would  like  to  lie  under  his  feet — and  him  not 
know  it." 

Her  mind  hung  on  that  for  a  long  time.  "  Not 
know  it  until  afterwards,"  she  corrected. 

She  liked  to  be  exact,  even  in  despair.    .    .    . 

And  then  in  her  memory  he  was  struck  again,  and 
stood  stiff  and  still.  She  wanted  to  kneel  to  him, 
imagined  herself  kneeling.  .  .  . 

And  so  on,  quite  inconclusively,  round  and  round 
through  the  interminable  night  hours. 


166  MARRIAGE 

§3 

The  young  man  in  the  village  was,  if  possible, 
more  perplexed,  round-eyed  and  generally  incon- 
clusive than  anyone  else  in  this  series  of  nocturnal 
disturbances.  He  spent  long  intervals  sitting  on  his 
window-sill  regarding  a  world  that  was  scented 
with  nightstock,  and  seemed  to  be  woven  of  moon- 
shine and  gossamer.  Being  an  inexpert  and  in- 
frequent soliloquist,  his  only  audible  comment  on  his 
difficulties  was  the  repetition  in  varying  intonations 
of  his  fervent,  unalterable  conviction  that  he  was 
damned.  But  behind  this  simple  verbal  mask  was 
a  great  fury  of  mental  activity. 

He  had  something  of  Marjorie's  amazement  at 
the  position  of  affairs. 

He  had  never  properly  realized  that  it  was 
possible  for  any  one  to  regard  Marjorie  as  a 
daughter,  to  order  her  about  and  resent  the  research 
for  her  society  as  criminal.  It  was  a  new  light  in  his 
world.  Some  day  he  was  to  learn  the  meaning  of 
fatherhood,  but  in  these  night  watches  he  regarded 
it  as  a  hideous  survival  of  mediaeval  darknesses. 

"  Of  course,"  he  said,  entirely  ignoring  the  actual 
quality  of  their  conversation,  "  she  had  to  explain 
about  the  Magnet  affair.  Can't  one — converse?" 

He  reflected  through  great  intervals. 

"  I  will  see  her !  Why  on  earth  shouldn't  I  see 
her?" 

"  I  suppose  they  can*t  lock  her  up !" 

For  a  time  he  contemplated  a  writ  of  Habeas 
Corpus.  He  saw  reason  to  regret  the  gaps  in  his 
legal  knowledge. 

"  Can  any  one  get  a  writ  of  Habeas  Corpus  for 
any  one — it  doesn't  matter  whom  " — more  especial- 
ly if  you  are  a  yooing  man  of  six-and-twenty,  anx- 


CRISIS  167 

ious  to  exchange  a  few  richly  charged  words  with 
a  girl  of  twenty  who  is  engaged  to  some  one  else? 

The  night  had  no  answer. 

It  was  nearly  dawn  when  he  came  to  the  entirely 
inadvisable  conclusion — I  use  his  own  words — to  go 
and  have  it  out  with  the  old  ruffian.  He  would  sit 
down  and  ask  him  what  he  meant  by  it  all — and 
reason  with  him.  If  he  started  flourishing  that  stick 
again,  it  would  have  to  be  taken  away. 

And  having  composed  a  peroration  upon  the 
institution  of  the  family  of  a  character  which  he 
fondly  supposed  to  be  extraordinarily  tolerant, 
reasonable  and  convincing,  but  which  was  indeed  cal- 
calculated  to  madden  Mr.  Pope  to  frenzy,  Mr.  Traf- 
ford  went  very  peacefully  to  sleep. 

§« 

Came  dawn,  with  a  noise  of  birds  and  after- 
wards a  little  sleep,  and  then  day,  and  heavy  eyes 
opened  again,  and  the  sound  of  frying  and  the  smell 
of  coffee  recalled  our  actors  to  the  stage.  Mrs. 
Pope  was  past  her  worst  despair;  always  the  morn- 
ing brings  courage  and  a  clearer  grasp  of  things, 
and  she  could  face  the  world  with  plans  shaped  sub- 
consciously during  those  last  healing  moments  of 
slumber. 

Breakfast  was  difficult,  but  not  impossible.  Mr. 
Pope  loomed  like  a  thundercloud,  but  Marjorie 
pleaded  a  headache  very  wisely,  and  was  taken  a 
sympathetic  cup  of  tea.  The  pseudo-twins  scented 
trouble,  but  Theodore  was  heedless  and  over-full  of 
an  entertaining  noise  made  by  a  moorhen  as  it  dived 
in  the  ornamental  water  that  morning.  You  could 
make  it  practically  sotto  voce,  and  it  amused  Syd. 
He  seemed  to  think  the  Times  opaque  to  such  smafl 


168  MARRIAGE 

sounds,  and  learnt  better  only  to  be  dismissed  under- 
fed and  ignominiously  from  the  table  to  meditate 
upon  the  imperfections  of  his  soul  in  the  schoolroom. 
There  for  a  time  he  was  silent,  and  then  presently 
became  audible  again,  playing  with  a  ball  and,  pre- 
sumably, Marjorie's  tennis  racquet. 

Directly  she  could  disentangle  herself  from  break- 
fast Mrs.  Pope,  with  all  her  plans  acute,  went  up  to 
the  girls'  room.  She  found  her  daughter  dressing  in 
a  leisurely  and  meditative  manner.  She  shut  the  door 
almost  confidentially.  "  Mar j  orie,"  she  said,  "  I 
want  you  to  tell  me  all  about  this." 

"I  thought  I  heard  father  telling  you,"  said 
Mar  j  orie. 

"  He  was  too  indignant,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  "  to 
explain  clearly.  You  see,  Mar  j  orie  " — she  paused 
before  her  effort — "  he  knows  things — about  this  Pro- 
fessor Trafford." 

"  What  things?"  asked  Mar  j  orie,  turning  sharply. 

"  I  don't  know,  my  dear — and  I  can't  imagine." 

She  looked  out  of  the  window,  aware  of  Mar- 
jorie's entirely  distrustful  scrutiny. 

"  I  don't  believe  it,"  said  Mar  j  orie. 

"  Don't  believe  what,  dear?" 

"  Whatever  he  says." 

"  I  wish  I  didn't,"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  and  turned. 
"  Oh,  Madge,"  she  cried,  "  you  cannot  imagine  how 
all  this  distresses  me!  I  cannot — I  cannot  conceive 
how  you  came  to  be  in  such  a  position !  Surely  hon- 
our  !  Think  of  Mr.  Magnet,  how  good  arid 

patient  he  has  been!  You  don't  know  that  man. 
You  don't  know  all  he  is,  and  all  that  it  means  to  a 
girl.  He  is  good  and  honourable  and — pure.  He  is 
kindness  itself.  It  seemed  to  me  that  you  were  to  be 
so  happy — rich,  honoured." 


CRISIS  169 

She  was  overcome  by  a  rush  of  emotion ;  she  turn- 
ed to  the  bed  and  sat  down. 

"  There!"  she  said  desolately.  "  It's  all  ruined, 
shattered,  gone." 

Marjorie  tried  not  to  feel  that  her  mother  was 
right. 

"  If  father  hadn't  interfered,"  she  said  weakly. 

"  Oh,  don't,  my  dear,  speak  so  coldly  of  your 
father !  You  don't  know  what  he  has  to  put  up  with. 
You  don't  know  his  troubles  and  anxieties — all  this 
wretched  business."  She  paused,  and  her  face  became 
portentous.  "  Marjorie,  do  you  know  if  these  rail- 
ways go  on  as  they  are  going  he  may  have  to  eat  into 
his  capital  this  year.  Just  think  of  that,  and  the 
worry  he  has  !  And  this  last  shame  and  anxiety !" 

Her  voice  broke  again.  Marjorie  listened  with 
an  expression  that  was  almost  sullen. 

"  But  what  is  it,"  she  asked,  "  that  father  knows 
about  Mr.  Trafford  f" 

"  I  don't  know,  dear.  I  don't  know.  But  it's 
something  that  matters — that  makes  it  all  different." 

"  Well,  may  I  speak  to  Mr.  Trafford  before  he 
leaves  Buryhamstreet  ?" 

"  My  dear !  Never  see  him,  dear — never  think  of 

him  again!  Your  father  would  not  dream Some 

day,  Marjorie,  you  will  rejoice — you  will  want  to 
thank  your  father  on  your  bended  knees  that  he 
saved  you  from  the  clutches  of  this  man.  ..." 

"  I  won't  believe  anything  about  Mr.  Trafford," 
she  said  slowly,  "  until  I  know " 

She  left  the  sentence  incomplete. 

She  made  her  declaration  abruptly.  "  I  love  Mr. 
Trafford,"  she  said,  with  a  catch  in  her  voice,  "  and  I 
don't  love  Mr.  Magnet." 

Mrs.  Pope  received  this  like  one  who  is  suddenly 
stabbed.  She  sat  still  as  if  overwhelmed,  one  hand 


170  MARRIAGE 

pressed  to  her  side  and  her  eyes  closed.  Then  she 
said,  as  if  she  gasped  involuntarily— 

"  It's  too  dreadful!  Marjorie,"  she  said,  "  I  want 
to  ask  you  to  do  something.  After  all,  a  mother  has 
some  claim.  ,Will  you  wait  just  a  little.  Will  you 
promise  me  to  do  nothing — nothing,  I  mean,  to  com- 
mit you — until  your  father  has  been  able  to  make 
inquiries.  Don't  see  him  for  a  little  while.  Very  soon 
you'll  be  one-and-twenty,  and  then  perhaps  things 
may  be  different.  If  he  cares  for  you,  and  you  for 
him,  a  little  separation  won't  matter.  .  .  .  Until 
your  father  has  inquired.  ..." 

"  Mother,"  said  Marjorie,  "  I  can't " 

Mrs.  Pope  drew  in  the  air  sharply  between  her 
teeth,  as  if  in  agony. 

"  But,  mother Mother,  I  must  let  Mr.  Traf- 

ford  know  that  I'm  not  to  see  him.  I  can't  suddenly 
cease.  .  .  .  If  I  could  see  him  once " 

"  Don't !"  said  Mrs.  Pope,  in  a  hollow  voice. 

Marjorie  began  weeping.  "  He'd  not  under- 
stand," she  said.  "  If  I  might  just  speak  to  him!" 

"  Not  alone,  Marjorie." 

Marjorie  stood  still.     "  Well — before  you." 

Mrs.  Pope  conceded  the  point.  "And  then,  Mar- 
jorie  "  she  said. 

"  I'd  keep  my  word,  mother,"  said  Marjorie,  and 
began  to  sob  in  a  manner  she  felt  to  be  absurdly 
childish — "  until — until  I  am  one-and-twenty.  I'd 
promise  that. 

Mrs.  Pope  did  a  brief  calculation.  "  Marjorie," 
she  said,  "  it's  only  your  happiness  I  think  of." 

"  I  know,"  said  Marjorie,  and  added  in  a  low 
voice,  "  and  father." 

"  My  dear,  you  don't  understand  your  father.  .  . 
I  believe — I  do  firmly  believe — if  anything  happened 
to  any  of  you  girls — anything  bad — he  would  kill 


CRISIS  171 

himself.  .  .  .  And  I  know  he  means  that  you  aren't 
to  go  about  so  much  as  you  used  to  do,  unless  we  have 
the  most  definite  promises.  Of  course,  your  father's 
ideas  aren't  always  my  ideas,  Marjorie;  but  it's  your 
duty — You  know  how  hasty  he  is  and — quick. 
Just  as  you  know  how  good  and  generous  and  kind 
he  is  " — she  caught  Marjorie's  eye,  and  added  a  little 
lamely— "at  bottom."  ...  She  thought.  "I 
think  I  could  get  him  to  let  you  say  just  one  word 
with  Mr.  Traiford.  It  would  be  very  difficult, 
but " 

She  paused  for  a  few  seconds,  and  seemed  to  be 
thinking  deeply. 

"  Marjorie,"  she  said,  "  Mr.  Magnet  must  never 
know  anything  of  this." 

"But,  mother !" 

"Nothing!" 

"  I  can't  go  on  with  my  engagement !" 

Mrs.  Pope  shook  her  head  inscrutably, 

"But  how  can  I,  mother?" 

"  You  need  not  tell  him  why,  Marjorie." 

"  But " 

"  Just  think  how  it  would  humiliate  and  distress 
him!  You  can't,  Marjorie.  You  must  find  some 
excuse — oh,  any  excuse !  But  not  the  truth — not  the 
truth,  Marjorie.  It  would  be  too  dreadful." 

Marjorie  thought.  "  Look  here,  mother,  I  may 
see  Mr.  Trafford  again  ?  I  may  really  speak  to  him  ?" 

"  Haven't  I  promised?" 

"  Then,  I'll  do  as  you  say,"  said  Marjorie. 

§  5 

Mrs.  Pope  found  her  husband  seated  at  the  desk 
in  the  ultra-Protestant  study,  meditating  gloomily. 

"  I've  been  talking  to  her,"  she  said,  "  She's  in 
a  state  of  terrible  distress." 


172  MARRIAGE 

"  She  ought  to  be,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"  Philip,  you  don't  understand  Marjorie." 

"  I  don't." 

"  You  think  she  was  kissing  that  man." 

"  Well,  she  was." 

"  You  can  think  that  of  her!" 

Mr.  Pope  turned  his  chair  to  her.    "  But  I  saw!'9 

Mrs.  Pope  shook  her  head.  "  She  wasn't ;  she 
was  struggling  to  get  away  from  him.  She  told  me 
so  herself.  I've  been  into  it  with  her.  You  don't 
understand,  Philip.  A  man  like  that  has  a  sort  of 
fascination  for  a  girl.  He  dazzles  her.  It's  the  way 
with  girls.  But  you're  quite  mistaken.  .  .  .  Quite. 
It's  a  sort  of  hypnotism.  She'll  grow  out  of  it.  Of 
course,  she  loves  Mr.  Magnet.  She  does  indeed.  I've 
not  a  doubt  of  it.  But " 

"  You're  sure  she  wasn't  kissing  him?" 

"  Positive." 

"  Then  why  didn't  she  say  so?" 

"  A  girl's  so  complex.  You  didn't  give  her  a 
chance.  She's  fearfully  ashamed  of  herself — fear- 
fully! but  it's  just  because  she  is  ashamed  that  she 
won't  admit  it." 

"  I'll  make  her  admit  it." 

"  You  ought  to  have  had  all  boys,"  said  Mrs. 
Pope.  "  Oh !  she'll  admit  it  some  day — readily 
enough.  But  I  believe  a  girl  of  her  spirit  would 
rather  die  than  begin  explaining.  You  can't  expect 
it  of  her.  Really  you  can't." 

He  grunted  and  shook  his  head  slowly  from  side 
to  side. 

She  sat  down  in  the  arm-chair  beside  the  desk. 

"  I  want  to  know  just  exactly  what  we  are  to  do 
about  the  girl,  Philip.  I  can't  bear  to  think  of  her — 
up  there." 


CRISIS  173 

"How?"  he  asked.     "Up  there?" 

"  Yes,"  she  answered  with  that  skilful  inconsecu- 
tiveness  of  hers,  and  let  a  brief  silence  touch  his 
imagination.  "  Do  you  think  that  man  means  to 
come  here  again  ?"  she  asked. 

"  Chuck  him  out  if  he  does,"  said  Mr.  Pope, 
grimly. 

She  pressed  her  lips  together  firmly.  She  seemed 
to  be  weighing  things  painfully.  "  I  wouldn't,"  she 
said  at  last. 

"  What  do  you  mean?"  asked  Mr.  Pope. 

"  I  do  not  want  you  to  make  an  open  quarrel 
with  Mr.  Trafford." 

66  Not  quarrel!" 

"  Not  an  open  one,"  said  Mrs.  Pope.  "  Of  course 
I  know  how  nice  it  would  be  if  you  could  use  a  horse- 
whip, dear.  There's  such  a  lot  of  things — if  we 
only  just  slash.  But — it  won't  help.  Get  him  to  go 
away.  She's  consented  never  to  see  him  again — 
practically.  She's  ready  to  tell  him  so  herself.  Part 
them  against  their  will — oh !  and  the  thing  may  go  on 
for  no  end  of  time.  But  treat  it  as  it  ought  to  be 
treated — She'll  be  very  tragic  for  a  week  or  so, 
and  then  she'll  forget  him  like  a  dream.  He  is  a 
dream — a  girl's  dream.  ...  If  only  we  leave  it 
alone,  she'll  leave  it  alone." 

§/» 
o 

Things  were  getting  straight,  Mrs.  Pope  felt.  She 
had  now  merely  to  add  a  few  touches  to  the  tranquil- 
lization  of  Daphne,  and  the  misdirection  of  the  twin's 
curiosity.  These  touches  accomplished,  it  seemed  that 
everything  was  done.  After  a  brief  reflection,  she 
dismissed  the  idea  of  putting  things  to  Theodore. 
She  ran  over  the  possibilities  of  the  servants  eaves- 


174  MARRIAGE 

dropping,  and  found  them  negligible.  Yes,  every- 
thing was  done — everything.  And  yet.  .  .  . 

The  queer  string  in  her  nature  between  religiosity 
and  superstition  began  to  vibrate.  She  hesitated. 
Then  she  slipped  upstairs,  fastened  the  door,  fell  on 
her  knees  beside  the  bed  and  put  the  whole  thing  as 
acceptably  as  possible  to  Heaven  in  a  silent,  simple, 
but  lucidly  explanatory  prayer.  .  .  . 

She  came  out  of  her  chamber  brighter  and  braver 
than  she  had  been  for  eighteen  long  hours.  She  could 
now,  she  felt,  await  the  developments  that  threatened 
with  the  serenity  of  one  who  is  prepared  at  every 
point.  She  went  almost  happily  to  the  kitchen,  only 
about  forty-five  minutes  behind  her  usual  time,  to 
order  the  day's  meals  and  see  with  her  own  eyes  that 
economies  prevailed.  And  it'  seemed  to  her,  on  the 
whole,  consoling,  and  at  any  rate  a  distraction,  when 
the  cook  informed  her  that  after  all  she  had  meant  to 
give  notice  on  the  day  of  aunt  Plessington's  visit. 

§7 

The  unsuspecting  Magnet,  fatigued  but  happy — 
for  three  hours  of  solid  humorous  writing  (omitting 
every  unpleasant  suggestion  and  mingling  in  the  most 
acceptable  and  saleable  proportions  smiles  and  tears) 
had  added  its  quota  to  the  intellectual  heritage  of 
England,  made  a  simple  light  lunch  cooked  in  homely 
village-inn  fashion,  lit  a  well  merited  cigar,  and  turn- 
ed his  steps  towards  the  vicarage.  He  was  preceded 
at  some  distance  along  the  avenuesque  drive  by  the 
back  of  Mr.  Trafford,  which  he  made  no  attempt  to 
overtake. 

Mr.  Trafford  was  admitted  and  disappeared,  and 
a  minute  afterwards  Magnet  reached  the  door. 

Mrs.  Pope  appeared  radiant — about  the  weather. 
A  rather  tiresome  man  had  just  called  upon  Mr. 


CRISIS  175 

Pope  about  business  matters,  she  said,  and  he  might 
be  detained  five  or  ten  minutes.  Marjorie  and  Daffy 
were  upstairs — resting.  They  had  been  disturbed 
by  bats  in  the  night. 

"  Isn't  it  charmingly  rural?"  said  Mrs.  Pope. 
"  Bats!" 

She  talked  about  bats  and  the  fear  she  had  of 
their  getting  in  her  hair,  and  as  she  talked  she  led 
the  way  brightly  but  firmly  as  far  as  possible  out  of 
earshot  of  the  windows  of  the  ultra  Protestant  study 
in  which  Mr.  Pope  was  now  (she  did  so  hope  tem- 
perately) interviewing  Mr.  Trafford. 


Directly  Mr.  Trafford  had  reached  the  front  door 
it  had  opened  for  him,  and  closed  behind  him  at  once. 
He  had  found  himself  with  Mrs.  Pope.  "  You  wish 
to  see  my  husband?"  she  had  said,  and  had  led  him 
to  the  study  forthwith.  She  had  returned  at  once  to 
intercept  Mr.  Magnet.  .  .  . 

Trafford  found  Mr.  Pope  seated  sternly  at  the 
centre  of  the  writing  desk,  regarding  him  with  a 
threatening  brow. 

"  Well,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Pope  breaking  the  silence, 
"  you  have  come  to  offer  some  explanation " 

While  awaiting  this  encounter  Mr.  Pope  had  not 
been  insensitive  to  the  tactical  and  scenic  possibilities 
of  the  occasion.  In  fact,  he  had  spent  the  latter  half 
of  the  morning  in  intermittent  preparations,  arrang- 
ing desks,  books,  hassocks  in  advantageous  positions, 
and  not  even  neglecting  such  small  details  as  the 
stamp  tray,  the  articles  of  interest  from  Jerusalem, 
and  the  rock-crystal  cenotaph,  which  he  had  exhibited 
in  such  a  manner  as  was  most  calculated  to  damp, 


176  MARRIAGE 

chill  and  subjugate  an  antagonist  in  the  exposed  area 
towards  the  window.  He  had  also  arranged  the  chairs 
in  a  highly  favourable  pattern. 

Mr.  Trafford  was  greatly  taken  aback  by  Mr. 
Pope's  juridical  manner  and  by  this  form  of  address, 
and  he  was  further  put  out  by  Mr.  Pope  saying  with 
a  regal  gesture  to  the  best  illuminated  and  most  iso- 
lated chair :  "  Be  seated,  sir." 

Mr.  Trafford's  exordium  vanished  from  his  mind, 
he  was  at  a  loss  for  words  until  spurred  to  speech  by 
Mr.  Pope's  almost  truculent:  "  Well?" 

"  I  am  in  love  sir,  with  your  daughter." 

"  I  am  not  aware  of  it,"  said  Mr.  Pope,  and  lifted 
and  dropped  the  paper-weight.  "  My  daughter,  sir, 
is  engaged  to  marry  Mr.  Magnet.  If  you  had  ap- 
proached me  in  a  proper  fashion  before  presuming 

to  attempt — to  attempt "     His  voice  thickened 

with  indignation, — "  Liberties  with  her,  you  would 
have  been  duly  informed  of  her  position — and  every- 
one would  have  been  saved  " — he  lifted  the  paper- 
weight. "  Everything  that  has  happened."  (Bump.) 

Mr.  Trafford  had  to  adjust  himself  to  the  un- 
expected elements  in  this  encounter.  "  Oh !"  he  said. 

"  Yes,"  said  Mr.  Pope,  and  there  was  a  distinct 
interval. 

"  Is  your  daughter  in  love  with  Mr.  Magnet?" 
asked  Mr.  Trafford  in  an  almost  colloquial  tone. 

Mr.  Pope  smiled  gravely.     "  I  presume  so,  sir." 

"  She  never  gave  me  that  impression,  anyhow," 
said  the  young  man. 

"  It  was  neither  her  duty  to  give  nor  yours  to 
receive  that  impression,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

Again  Mr.  Trafford  was  at  a  loss. 

"Have  you  come  here,  sir,  merely  to  bandy 
words?"  asked  Mr.  Pope,  drumming  with  ten  fingers 
en  the  table. 


CRISIS  177 

Mr.  Trafford  thrust  his  hands  into  his  pockets 
and  assumed  a  fictitious  pose  of  ease.  He  had  never 
found  any  one  in  his  life  before  quite  so  provocative 
of  colloquialism  as  Mr.  Pope. 

"  Look  here,  sir,  this  is  all  very  well,"  he  began, 
"but  why  can't  I  fall  in  love  with  your  daughter? 
I'm  a  Doctor  of  Science  and  all  that  sort  of  thing. 
I've  a  perfectly  decent  outlook.  My  father  was  rather 
a  swell  in  his  science.  I'm  an  entirely  decent  and 
respectable  person." 

"  I  beg  to  differ,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

"But  I  am." 

"  Again,"  said  Mr.  Pope,  with  great  patience,  and 
a  slight  forward  bowing  of  the  head,  "  I  beg  to  differ." 

"  Well— differ.     But  all  the  same " 

He  paused  and  began  again,  and  for  a  time  they 
argued  to  no  purpose.  They  generalized  about  the 
position  of  an  engaged  girl  and  the  rights  and  privi- 
leges of  a  father.  Then  Mr.  Pope,  "  to  cut  all  this 
short,"  told  him  frankly  he  wasn't  wanted,  his  daugh- 
ter did  not  want  him,  nobody  wanted  him ;  he  was  an 
invader,  he  had  to  be  got  rid  of — "  if  possible  by 
peaceful  means."  Trafford  disputed  these  proposi- 
tions, and  asked  to  see  Marjorie.  Mr.  Pope  had  been 
leading  up  to  this,  and  at  once  closed  with  that 
request. 

"  She  is  as  anxious  as  any  one  to  end  this  intol- 
erable siege,"  he  said.  He  went  to  the  door  and 
called  for  Marjorie,  who  appeared  with  conspicuous 
promptitude.  She  was  in  a  dress  of  green  linen  that 
made  her  seem  very  cool  as  well  as  very  dignified  to 
Trafford;  she  was  tense  with  restrained  excitement, 
and  either — for  these  things  shade  into  each  other — 
entirely  without  a  disposition  to  act  her  part  or 
acting  with  consummate  ability.  Trafford  rose  at 
the  sight  of  her,  and  remained  standing.  Mr.  Pope 


178  MARRIAGE 

closed  the  door  and  walked  back  to  the  desk.  "  Mr. 
Trafford  has  to  be  told,"  he  said,  "  that  you  don't 
want  him  in  Buryhamstreet."  He  arrested  Mar- 
jorie's  forward  movement  towards  Trafford  by  a 
gesture  of  the  hand,  seated  himself,  and  resumed  his 
drumming  on  the  table.  "  Well?"  he  said. 

"  I  don't  think  you  ought  to  stay  in  Buryham- 
street, Mr.  Trafford,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  You  don't  want  me  to?" 

"  It  will  only  cause  trouble — and  scenes." 

"  You  want  me  to  go  ?" 

"  Away  from  here." 

"  You  really  mean  that  ?" 

Marjorie  did  not  answer  for  a  little  time;  she 
seemed  to  be  weighing  the  exact  force  of  all  she  was 
going  to  say. 

"  Mr.  Trafford,"  she  answered,  "  everything  I've 
ever  said  to  you — everything — I've  meant,  more  than 
I've  ever  meant  anything.  Everything!" 

A  little  flush  of  colour  came  into  Trafford's 
cheeks.  He  regarded  Marjorie  with  a  brightening 
eye. 

"  Oh  well,"  he  said,  "  I  don't  understand.  But 
I'm  entirely  in  your  hands,  of  course." 

Marjorie's  pose  and  expression  altered.  For  an 
instant  she  was  a  miracle  of  instinctive  expression, 
she  shone  at  him,  she  conveyed  herself  to  him,  she 
assured  him.  Her  eyes  met  his,  she  stood  warmly 
flushed  and  quite  unconquered — visibly,  magnificently 
his.  She  poured  into  him  just  that  riotous  pride  and 
admiration  that  gives  a  man  altogether  to  a  woman. 
.  .  .  Then  it  seemed  as  if  a  light  passed,  and  she 
was  just  an  everyday  Marjorie  standing  there. 

"  I'll  do  anything  you  want  me  to,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Then  I  want  you  to  go." 

"Ah!"  said  Mr.  Pope. 


CRISIS  179 

"  Yes,"  said  Trafford,  with  his  eyes  on  her  self- 
possession. 

"  I've  promised  not  to  write  or  send  to  you,  or — 
think  more  than  I  can  help  of  you,  until  I'm  twenty- 
one — nearly  two  months  from  now." 

"And  then?" 

"  I  don't  know.     How  can  I?" 

"  You  hear,  sir?"  from  Mr.  Pope,  in  the  pause 
of  mutual  scrutiny  that  followed. 

"  One  question,"  said  Mr.  Trafford. 

"  You've  surely  asked  enough,  sir,"  said  Mr. 
Pope. 

"  Are  you  still  engaged  to  Magnet  ?" 

"Sir!" 

"Please,  father;"  said  Marjorie,  with  unusual 
daring  and  in  her  mother's  voice.  "  Mr.  Trafford, 
after  what  I've  told  you — you  must  leave  that  to 
me." 

"  She  is  engaged  to  Mr.  Magnet/'  said!  Mr. 
Pope.  "  Tell  him  outright,  Marjorie.  Make  it 
clear." 

"  I  think  I  understand,"  said  Trafford,  with  his 
eyes  on  Marjorie. 

"  I've  not  seen  Mr.  Magnet  since  last  night,"  said 
Marjorie.  "And  so — naturally — I'm  still  engaged 
to  him." 

"  Precisely !"  said  Mr.  Pope,  and  turned  with  a 
face  of  harsh  interrogation  to  his  importunate  caller. 
Mr.  Trafford  seemed  disposed  for  further  questions. 
"  I  don't  think  we  need  detain  you,  Madge,"  said 
Mr.  Pope,  over  his  shoulder. 

The  two  young  people  stood  facing  one  another 
for  a  moment,  and  I  am  afraid  that  they  were  both 
extremely  happy  and  satisfied  with  each  other.  It 
was  all  right,  they  were  quite  sure — all  right.  Their 
lips  were  almost  smiling.  Then  Marjorie  made  an 


180  MARRIAGE 

entirely  dignified  exit.  She  closed  the  door  very 
softly,  and  Mr.  Pope  turned  to  his  visitor  again  with 
a  bleak  politeness.  "  I  hope  that  satisfies  you,"  he 
said. 

"  There  is  nothing  more  to  be  said  at  present,  I 
admit,"  said  Mr.  Trafford. 

"  Nothing,"  said  Mr.  Pope. 

Both  gentlemen  bowed.  Mr.  Pope  rose  ceremoni- 
ously, and  Mr.  Trafford  walked  doorward.  He  had 
a  sense  of  latent  absurdities  in  these  tremendous 
attitudes.  They  passed  through  the  hall — proces- 
sionally.  But  just  at  the  end  some  lower  strain  in 
Mr.  Trafford's  nature  touched  the  fine  dignity  of  the 
occasion  with  an  inappropriate  remark. 

"  Good-bye,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Pope,  holding  the 
housedoor  wide. 

"  Good-bye,  sir,"  said  Mr.  Trafford,  and  then 
added  with  a  note  of  untimely  intimacy  in  his  voice, 
with  an  inexcusable  levity  upon  his  lips :  "  You  know 
— there's  nobody — no  man  in  the  world — I'd  sooner 
have  for  a  father-in-law  than  you." 

Mr.  Pope,  caught  unprepared  on  the  spur  of  the 
moment,  bowed  in  a  cold  and  distant  manner,  and 
then  almost  immediately  closed  the  door  to  save  him- 
self from  violence.  .  .  . 

From  first  to  last  neither  gentleman  had  made 
the  slightest  allusion  to  a  considerable  bruise  upon 
Mr.  Trafford's  left  cheek,  and  a  large  abrasion  above 
his  ear. 

§9 

That  afternoon  Marjorie  began  her  difficult  task 
of  getting  disengaged  from  Mr.  Magnet.  It  was 
difficult  because  she  was  pledged  not  to  tell  him  of 
the  one  thing  that  made  this  line  of  action  not  only 


CRISIS  181 

explicable,  but  necessary.  Magnet,  perplexed,  and1 
disconcerted,  and  secretly  sustained  by  her  mother's 
glancing  sidelights  on  the  feminine  character  and  the 
instability  of  "  girlish  whims,"  remained  at  Buryham- 
street  until  the  family  returned  to  Hartstone  Square. 
The  engagement  was  ended — formally — but  in  such 
a  manner  that  Magnet  was  left  a  rather  pathetic 
and  invincibly  assiduous  besieger.  He  lavished  little 
presents  upon  both  sisters,  he  devised  little  treats  for 
the  entire  family,  he  enriched  Theodore  beyond  the 
dreams  of  avarice,  and  he  discussed  his  love  and  ad- 
miration for  Marjorie,  and  the  perplexities  and 
delicacies  of  the  situation  not  only  with  Mrs.  Pope, 
but  with  Daphne.  At  first  he  had  thought  very  little 
of  Daphne,  but  now  he  was  beginning  to  experience 
the  subtle  pleasures  of  a  confidential  friendship.  She 
understood,  he  felt;  it  was  quite  wonderful  how  she 
understood.  He  found  Daffy  much  richer  in  re- 
sponse than  Marjorie,  and  far  less  disconcerting  in 
reply.  .  .  . 

Mr.  Pope,  for  all  Marjorie's  submission  to  his 
wishes,  developed  a  Grand  Dudgeon  of  exceptionally 
fine  proportions  when  he  heard  of  the  breach  of  the 
engagement.  He  ceased  to  speak  to  his  daughter  or 
admit  himself  aware  of  her  existence,  and  the  Grand 
Dudgeon's  blighting  shadow  threw  a  chill  over  the 
life  of  every  one  in  the  house.  He  made  it  clear  that 
the  Grand  Dudgeon  would  only  be  lifted  by  Mar- 
jorie's re-engagement  to  Magnet,  and  that  whatever 
blight  or  inconvenience  fell  on  the  others  was  due 
entirely  to  Marjorie's  wicked  obstinacy.  Using  Mrs. 
Pope  as  an  intermediary,  he  also  conveyed  to  Mar- 
jorie his  decision  to  be  no  longer  burthened  with  the 
charges  of  her  education  at  Oxbridge,  and  he  made  it 
seem  extremely  doubtful  whether  he  should  remember 
her  approaching  twenty-first  birthday. 


182  MARRIAGE 

Mar j  one  received  the  news  of  her  severance  from 
Oxbridge,  Mrs.  Pope  thought,  with  a  certain  hard- 
ness. 

"I  thought  he  would  do  that,"  said  Marjorie, 
"  He's  always  wanted  to  do  that,"  and  said  no  more. 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 

A  TELEPHONE  CALL 

§1 

TRAFFORD  went  back  to  Solomonson  for  a  day  or  so, 
and  then  to  London,  to  resume  the  experimental  work 
of  the  research  he  had  in  hand.  But  he  was  so  much 
in  love  with  Marjorie  that  for  some  days  it  was  a  very 
dazed  mind  that  fumbled  with  the  apparatus — 
arranged  it  and  rearranged  it,  and  fell  into  day- 
dreams that  gave  the  utmost  concern  to  Durgan  the 
bottle-washer. 

"  He's  not  going  straight  at  things,"  said  Durgan 
the  bottle-washer  to  his  wife.  "  He  usually  goes  so 
straight  at  things  it's  a  pleasure  to  watch  it.  He 
told  me  he  was  going  down  into  Kent  to  think  every- 
thing out."  Mr.  Durgan  paused  impressively,  and 
spoke  with  a  sigh  of  perplexity.  "  He  hasn't.  .  .  ." 

But  later  Durgan  was  able  to  report  that  Traf- 
ford  had  pulled  himself  together.  The  work  was 
moving. 

"  I  was  worried  for  a  bit,"  said  Mr.  Durgan. 
"  But  I  think  it's  all  right  again.  I  believe  it's  all 
right  again.5^/^ 

§* 

Trafford  was  one  of  those  rare  scientific  men  who 
really  ought  to  be  engaged  in  scientific  research. 

He  could  never  leave  an  accepted  formula  alone. 
His  mind  was  like  some  insatiable  corrosive,  that  ate 
into  all  the  hidden  inequalities  and  plastered  weak- 
nesses of  accepted  theories,  and  bit  its  way  through 

183 


184  MARRIAGE 

every  plausibility  of  appearance.  He  was  extraordi- 
narily fertile  in  exasperating  alternative  hypotheses. 
His  invention  of  destructive  test  experiments  was  as 
happy  as  the  respectful  irony  with  which  he  brought 
them  into  contact  with  the  generalizations  they 
doomed.  He  was  already,  at  six-and-twenty,  hated, 
abused,  obstructed,  and  respected.  He  was  still  out- 
side the  Royal  Society,  of  course,  and  the  editors  of 
the  scientific  periodicals  admired  his  papers  greatly, 
and  delayed  publication;  but  it  was  fairly  certain 
that  that  pressure  of  foreign  criticism  and  competi- 
tion which  prevents  English  scientific  men  of  good 
family  and  social  position  from  maintaining  any 
such  national  standards  as  we  are  able  to  do  in  art, 
literature,  and  politics,  would  finally  carry  him  in. 
And  since  he  had  a  small  professorship  worth  three 
hundred  a  year,  which  gave  him  the  command  of  a 
sufficient  research  laboratory  and  the  services  of  Mr. 
Durgan,  a  private  income  of  nearly  three  hundred 
more,  a  devoted  mother  to  keep  house  for  him,  and 
an  invincible  faith  in  Truth,  he  had  every  prospect 
of  winning  in  his  particular  struggle  to  inflict  more 
Truth,  new  lucidities,  and  fresh  powers  upon  this 
fractious  and  unreasonable  universe. 

In  the  world  of  science  now,  even  more  than  in  the 
world  of  literature  and  political  thought,  the  thing 
that  is  alive  struggles,  half -suffocated,  amidst  a 
copious  production  of  things  born  dead.  The  en- 
dowment of  research,  the  organization  of  scientific 
progress,  the  creation  of  salaried  posts,  and  the 
assignment  of  honours,  has  attracted  to  this  field 
just  that  type  of  man  which  is  least  gifted  to  pene- 
trate and  discover,  and  least  able  to  admit  its  own 
defect  or  the  quality  of  a  superior.  Such  men  are 
producing  great,  bulky  masses  of  imitative  research, 
futile  inquiries,  and  monstrous  entanglements  of 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          185 

technicality  about  their  subjects;  and  it  is  to  their 
instinctive  antagonism  to  the  idea  of  a  "  gift "  in 
such  things  that  we  owe  the  preposterous  conception 
of  a  training  for  research,  the  manufacture  of  mental 
blinkers  that  is  to  say,  to  avoid  what  is  the  very  soul 
of  brilliant  inquiry — applicable  discursiveness.  The 
trained  investigator  is  quite  the  absurdest  figure  in 
the  farce  of  contemporary  intellectual  life ;  he  is  like 
a  bath-chair  perpetually  starting  to  cross  the  Hima- 
layas by  virtue  of  a  licence  to  do  so.  For  such  en- 
terprises one  must  have  wings.  Organization  and 
genius  are  antipathetic.  The  vivid  and  creative 
mind,  by  virtue  of  its  qualities,  is  a  spasmodic  and 
adventurous  mind;  it  resents  blinkers,  and  the  mere 
implication  that  it  can  be  driven  in  harness  to  the 
unexpected.  It  demands  freedom.  It  resents  regu- 
lar attendance  from  ten  to  four  and  punctualities  in 
general  and  all  those  paralyzing  minor  tests  of  con- 
duct that  are  vitally  important  to  the  imagination 
of  the  authoritative  dull.  Consequently,  it  is  being 
eliminated  from  its  legitimate  field,  and  it  is  only 
here  and  there  among  the  younger  men  that  such  a 
figure  as  Trafford  gives  any  promise  of  a  renewal  of 
that  enthusiasm,  that  intellectual  enterprise,  which 
were  distinctive  of  the  great  age  of  scientific  advance. 
Trafford  was  the  only  son  of  his  parents.  His 
father  had  been  a  young  surgeon,  more  attracted  by 
knowledge  than  practice,  who  had  been  killed  by  a 
scratch  of  the  scalpel  in  an  investigation  upon  ulcer- 
ative  processes,  at  the  age  of  twenty-nine.  Trafford 
at  that  time  was  three  years  old,  so  that  he  had  not 
the  least  memory  of  his  father;  but  his  mother,  by  a 
thousand  almost  unpremeditated  touches,  had  built 
up  a  figure  for  him  and  a  tradition  that  was  shaping 
his  life.  She  had  loved  her  husband  passionately,  and 
when  he  died  her  love  burnt  up  like  a  flame  released, 


186  MARRIAGE 

and  made  a  god  of  the  good  she  had  known  with  him. 
She  was  then  a  very  beautiful  and  active-minded 
woman  of  thirty,  and  she  did  her  best  to  reconstruct 
her  life;  but  she  could  find  nothing  so  living  in  the 
world  as  the  clear  courage,  the  essential  simplicity, 
and  tender  memories  of  the  man  she  had  lost.  And 
she  was  the  more  devoted  to  him  that  he  had  had  little 
weaknesses  of  temper  and  bearing,  and  that  an  out- 
rageous campaign  had  been  waged  against  him  that 
did  not  cease  with  his  death.  He  had,  in  some  medi- 
cal periodical,  published  drawings  of  a  dead  dog 
clamped  to  display  a  deformity,  and  these  had  been 
seized  upon  by  a  group  of  anti-vivisection  fanatics 
as  the  representation  of  a  vivisection.  A  libel  action 
had  been  pending  when  he  died ;  but  there  is  no  pro- 
tection of  the  dead  from  libel.  That  monstrous  lie 
met  her  on  pamphlet  cover,  on  hoardings,  in  sensa- 
tional appeals;  it  seemed  immortal,  and  she  would 
have  suffered  the  pains  of  a  dozen  suttees  if  she 
could  have  done  so,  to  show  the  world  how  the  power 
and  tenderness  of  this  alleged  tormentor  of  helpless 
beasts  had  gripped  one  woman's  heart.  It  counted 
enormously  in  her  decision  to  remain  a  widow  and 
concentrate  her  life  upon  her  son. 

She  watched  his  growth  with  a  care  and  passion- 
ate subtlety  that  even  at  six-and-twenty  he  was  still 
far  from  suspecting.  She  dreaded  his  becoming  a 
mother's  pet,  she  sent  him  away  to  school  and  fretted 
through  long  terms  alone,  that  he  might  be  made 
into  a  man.  She  interested  herself  in  literary  work 
and  social  affairs  lest  she  should  press  upon  him  un- 
duly. She  listened  for  the  crude  expression  of  grow- 
ing thought  in  him  with  an  intensity  that  was  almost 
anguish.  She  was  too  intelligent  to  dream  of  forming 
his  mind,  he  browsed  on  every  dtoctrine  to  find  his 
own,  but  she  did  desire  most  passionately,  she  prayed, 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          187 

she  prayed  in  the  darkness  of  sleepless  nights,  that 
the  views,  the  breadths,  the  spacious  emotions  which 
had  ennobled  her  husband  in  her  eyes  should  rise 
again  in  him. 

There  were  years  of  doubt  and  waiting.  He  was 
a  good  boy  and  a  bad  boy,  now  brilliant,  now  touch- 
ing, now  disappointing,  now  gloriously  reassuring, 
and  now  heart-rending  as  only  the  children  of  our 
blood  can  be.  He  had  errors  and  bad  moments, 
lapses  into  sheer  naughtiness,  phases  of  indolence, 
attacks  of  contagious  vulgarity.  But  more  and  more 
surely  she  saw  him  for  his  father's  son;  she  traced 
the  same  great  curiosities,  the  same  keen  dauntless 
questioning;  whatever  incidents  might  disturb  and 
perplex  her,  his  intellectual  growth  went  on  strong 
and  clear  and  increasing  like  some  sacred  flame  that 
is  carried  in  procession,  halting  perhaps  and  sway- 
ing a  little  but  keeping  on,  over  the  heads  of  a 
tumultuous  crowd. 

He  went  from  his  school  to  the  Royal  College  of 
Science,  thence  to  successes  at  Cambridge,  and  thence 
to  Berlin.  He  travelled  a  little  in  Asia  Minor  and 
Persia,  had  a  journey  to  America,  and  then  came  back 
to  her  and  London,  sunburnt,  moustached,  manly, 
and  a  little  strange.  When  he  had  been  a  boy  she 
had  thought  his  very  soul  pellucid;  it  had  clouded 
opaquely  against  her  scrutiny  as  he  passed  into  ado- 
lescence. Then  through  the  period  of  visits  and 
departures,  travel  together,  separations,  he  grew  into 
something  detached  and  admirable,  a  man  curiously 
reminiscent  of  his  father,  unexpectedly  different.  She 
ceased  to  feel  what  he  was  feeling  in  his  mind,  had 
to  watch  him,  infer,  guess,  speculate  about  him.  She 
desired  for  him  and  dreaded  for  him  with  an  undying 
tenderness,  but  she  no  longer  had  any  assurance  that 
she  could  interfere  to  help  him.  He  had  his  father's 


188  MARRIAGE 

trick  of  falling  into  thought.  Her  brown  eyes  would 
watch  him  across  the  flowers  and  delicate  glass  and 
silver  of  her  dinner  table  when  he  dined  at  home 
with  her.  Sometimes  he  seemed  to  forget  she  existed, 
sometimes  he  delighted  in  her,  talked  to  amuse  her, 
petted  her;  sometimes,  and  then  it  was  she  was 
happiest,  he  talked  of  plays  and  books  with  her, 
discussed  general  questions,  spoke  even  of  that 
broadly  conceived  scheme  of  work  which  engaged  so 
much  of  his  imagination.  She  knew  that  it  was  dis- 
tinguished and  powerful  work.  Old  friends  of  her 
husband  spoke  of  it  to  her,  praised  its  inspired  direct- 
ness, its  beautiful  simplicity.  Since  the  days  of  Wol- 
laston,  they  said,  no  one  had  been  so  witty  an  experi- 
menter, no  one  had  got  more  out  of  mere  scraps  of 
apparatus  or  contrived  more  ingenious  simplifications. 
When  he  had  accepted  the  minor  Professorship 
which  gave  him  a  footing  in  the  world  of  responsible 
scientific  men,  she  had  taken  a  house  in  a  quiet  street 
in  Chelsea  which  necessitated  a  daily  walk  to  his 
laboratory.  It  was  a  little  old  Georgian  house  with 
worn  and  graceful  rooms,  a  dignified  front  door  and 
a  fine  gateway  of  Sussex  ironwork  much  painted  and 
eaten  away.  She  arranged  it  with  great  care;  she 
had  kept  most  of  her  furniture,  and  his  study  had  his 
father's  bureau,  and  the  selfsame  agate  paper-weight 
that  had  pressed  the  unfinished  paper  he  left  when 
he  died.  She  was  a  woman  of  persistent  friendships, 
and  there  came  to  her,  old  connections  of  those  early 
times  trailing  fresher  and  younger  people  in  their 
wake,  sons,  daughters,  nephews,  disciples;  her  son 
brought  home  all  sorts  of  interesting  men,  and  it  was 
remarkable  to  her  that  amidst  the  talk  and  discussion 
at  her  table,  she  discovered  aspects  of  her  son  and 
often  quite  intimate  aspects  she  would  never  have 
seen  with  him  alone. 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          189 

She  would  not  let  herself  believe  that  this  Indian 
summer  of  her  life  could  last  for  ever.  He  was  no 
passionless  devotee  of  research,  for  all  his  silence  and 
restraints.  She  had  seen  him  kindle  with  anger  at 
obstacles  and  absurdities,  and  quicken  in  the  pres- 
ence of  beauty.  She  knew  how  readily  and  richly  he 
responded  to  beauty.  Things  happened  to  have  run 
smoothly  with  him  so  far,  that  was  all.  "  Of  course," 
she  said,  "  he  must  fall  in  love.  It  cannot  be  long 
before  he  falls  in  love." 

Once  or  twice  that  had  seemed  to  happen,  and 
then  it  had  come  to  nothing.  .  .  . 

She  knew  that  sooner  or  later  this  completion  of 
his  possibilities  must  come,  that  the  present  steadfast- 
ness of  purpose  was  a  phase  in  which  forces  gathered, 
that  love  must  sweep  into  his  life  as  a  deep  and  pas- 
sionate disturbance.  She  wondered  where  it  would 
take  him,  whether  it  would  leave  him  enriched  or 
devastated.  She  saw  at  times  how  young  he  was ;  she 
had,  as  I  suppose  most  older  people  have  about  their 
juniors,  the  profoundest  doubt  whether  he  was  wise 
enough  yet  to  be  trusted  with  a  thing  so  good  as 
himself.  He  had  flashes  of  high-spirited  indiscretion, 
and  at  times  a  wildfire  of  humour  flared  in  his  talk. 
So  far  that  had  done  no  worse  for  him  than  make 
an  enemy  or  so  in  scientific  circles.  But  she  had  no 
idea  of  the  limits  of  his  excitability.  She  would 
watch  him  and  fear  for  him — she  knew  the  wreckage 
love  can  make — and  also  she  desired  that  he  should 
lose  nothing  that  life  and  his  nature  could  give  him. 

§3 

In,  the  two  months  of  separation  that  ensued 
Defore  Marjorie  was  one-and- twenty,  Trafford's  mind 
went  through  some  remarkable  phases.  At  first  the 
excitement  of  his  passion  for  Marjorie  obscured 


190  MARRIAGE 

everything  else,  then  with  his  return  to  London  and 
his  laboratory  the  immense  inertia  of  habit  and 
slowly  developed  purposes,  the  complex  yet  conver- 
gent system  of  ideas  and  problems  to  which  so  much 
of  his  life  had  been  given,  began  to  reassert  itself. 
His  love  was  vivid  and  intense,  a  light  in  his  imagi- 
nation, a  fever  in  his  blood;  but  it  was  a  new  thing; 
it  had  not  crept  into  the  flesh  and  bones  of  his  being, 
it  was  away  there  in  Surrey;  the  streets  of  London, 
his  home,  the  white-walled  chamber  with  its  skylight 
and  high  windows  and  charts  of  constants,  in  which 
his  apparatus  was  arranged,  had  no  suggestion  of 
her.  She  was  outside — an  adventure — a  perplexing 
incommensurable  with  all  these  things. 

He  had  left  Buryhamstreet  with  Marjorie  riot- 
ously in  possession  of  his  mind.  He  could  think  of 
nothing  but  Marjorie  in  the  train,  and  how  she  had 
shone  at  him  in  the  study,  and  how  her  voice  had 
sounded  when  she  spoke,  and  how  she  stood  and 
moved,  and  the  shape  and  sensation  of  her  hands,  and 
how  it  had  felt  to  hold  her  for  those  brief  moments 
in  the  wood  and  press  lips  and  body  to  his,  and  how 
her  face  had  gleamed  in  the  laced  shadows  of  the 
moonlight,  soft  and  wonderful. 

In  fact,  he  thought  of  Marjorie. 

He  thought  she  was  splendid,  courageous,  wise  by 
instinct.  He  had  no  doubt  of  her  or  that  she  was  to 
be  his — when  the  weeks  of  waiting  had  passed  by. 
She  was  his,  and  he  was  Marjorie's;  that  had  been 
settled  from  the  beginning  of  the  world.  It  didn't 
occur  to  him  that  anything  had  happened  to  alter 
his  life  or  any  of  his  arrangements  in  any  way,  except 
that  they  were  altogether  altered — as  the  world  is 
altered  without  displacement  when  the  sun  pours  up 
in  the  east.  He  was  glorified — and  everything  was 
glorified. 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          191 

He  wondered  how  they  would  meet  again,  and 
dreamt  a  thousand  impossible  and  stirring  dreams, 
but  he  dreamt  them  as  dreams. 

At  first,  to  Durgan's  infinite  distress,  he  thought 
of  her  all  day,  and  then,  as  the  old  familiar  interests 
grappled  him  again,  he  thought  of  her  in  the  morn- 
ing and  the  evening  and  as  he  walked  between  his 
home  and  the  laboratory  and  at  all  sorts  of  inciden- 
tal times — and  even  when  the  close-locked  riddles  of 
his  research  held  the  foreground  and  focus  of  his 
thoughts,  he  still  seemed  to  be  thinking  of  her  as  a 
radiant  background  to  ions  and  molecules  and  atoms 
and  interwoven  systems  of  eddies  and  quivering  oscil- 
lations deep  down  in  the  very  heart  of  matter. 

And  always  he  thought  of  her  as  something  of 
the  summer.  The  rich  decays  of  autumn  came,  the 
Chelsea  roads  were  littered  with  variegated  leaves 
that  were  presently  wet  and  dirty  and  slippery,  the 
twilight  crept  down  into  the  day  towards  five  o'clock 
and  four,  but  in  his  memory  of  her  the  leaves  were 
green,  the  evenings  were  long,  the  warm  quiet  of 
rural  Surrey  in  high  August  filled  the  air.  So  that 
it  was  with  a  kind  of  amazement  he  found  her  in 
London  and  in  November  close  at  hand.  He  was 
called  to  the  college  telephone  one  day  from  a  con- 
versation with  a  proposed  research  student.  It  was 
a  middle-aged  woman  bachelor  anxious  for  the  D.Sc., 
who  wished  to  occupy  the  further  bench  in  the  la- 
boratory; but  she  had  no  mental  fire,  and  his  mind 
was  busy  with  excuses  and  discouragements. 

He  had  no  thought  of  Marjorie  when  she  answer- 
ed, and  for  an  instant  he  did -not  recognize  her  voice. 

"  Yes,  I'm  Mr.  Trafford."    .     .    . 

"  Who  is  it  ?"  he  reiterated  with  a  note  of  irasci- 
bility. "Who?" 

The  little  voice  laughed.  "  Why!  I'm  Marjorie!" 
it  said. 


192  MARRIAGE 

Then  she  was  back  in  his  life  like  a  lantern  sud- 
denly become  visible  in  a  wood  at  midnight. 

It  was  like  meeting  her  as  a  china  figure,  neat 
and  perfect  and  two  inches  high.  It  was  her  voice, 
very  clear  and  very  bright,  and  quite  characteristic, 
as  though  he  was  hearing  it  through  the  wrong  end 
of  a  telescope.  It  was  her  voice,  clear  as  a  bell ;  con- 
fident without  a  shadow. 

"It's  me!     Marjorie!     I'm  twenty-one  to-day!" 

It  was  like  a  little  arrow  of  exquisite  light  shot 
into  the  very  heart  of  his  life. 

He  laughed  back.  "  Are  you  for  meeting  me 
then,  Marjorie?" 

§4 

They  met  in  Kensington  Gardens  with  an  air  of 
being  clandestine  and  defiant.  It  was  one  of  those 
days  of  amber  sunlight,  soft  air,  and  tender  beauty 
with  which  London  relieves  the  tragic  glooms  of  the 
year's  decline.  There  were  still  a  residue  of  warm- 
tinted  leaves  in  puffs  and  clusters  upon  the  tree 
branches,  a  boat  or  two  ruffled  the  blue  Serpentine, 
and  the  waterfowl  gave  colour  and  animation  to  the 
selvage  of  the  water.  The  sedges  were  still  a  greenish 
yellow. 

The  two  met  shyly.  They  were  both  a  little  un- 
familiar to  each  other.  Trafford  was  black-coated, 
silk-hatted,  umbrella-d,  a  decorous  young  professor 
in  the  place  of  the  cheerful  aeronaut  who  had  fallen 
so  gaily  out  of  the  sky.  Marjorie  had  a  new  tailor- 
made  dress  of  russet-green,  and  a  little  cloth  toque 
ruled  and  disciplined  the  hair  he  had  known  as  a 
ruddy  confusion.  .  .  .  They  had  dreamt,  I  think, 
of  extended  arms  and  a  wild  rush  to  embrace  one 
another.  Instead,  they  shook  hands. 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          193 

"  And  so,"  said  Trafford,  "  we  meet  again !" 

"  I  don't  see  why  we  shouldn't  meet !"  said  Mar- 
jorie. 

There  was  a  slight  pause. 

"  Let's  have  two  of  those  jolly  little  green 
chairs,"  said  Trafford.  .  .  . 

They  walked  across  the  grass  towards  the  chairs 
he  had  indicated,  and  both  were  full  of  the  momen- 
tous things  they  were  finding  it  impossible  to  say. 

"  There  ought  to  be  squirrels  here,  as  there  are 
in  New  York,"  he  said  at  last. 

They  sat  down.  There  was  a  moment's  silence, 
and  then  Trafford's  spirit  rose  in  rebellion  and  he 
plunged  at  this — this  stranger  beside  him. 

"  Look  here,"  he  said,  "  do  you  still  love  me, 
Marjorie?" 

She  looked  up  into  his  face  with  eyes  in  which 
surprise  and  scrutiny  passed  into  something  alto- 
gether beautiful.  "  I  love  you — altogether,"  she 
said  in  a  steady,  low  voice. 

And  suddenly  she  was  no  longer  a  stranger,  but 
the  girl  who  had  flitted  to  his  arms  breathless,  un- 
hesitating, through  the  dusk.  His  blood  quickened. 
He  made  an  awkward  gesture  as  though  he  arrested 
an  impulse  to  touch  her.  "  My  sweetheart,"  he  said. 
"  My  dear  one !" 

Marjorie's  face  flashed  responses.  "  It's  you," 
he  said. 

"  Me,"  she  answered. 

"Do  you  remember?" 

"Everything!" 

"My  dear!" 

"  I  want  to  tell  you  things,"  said  Marjorie. 
"What  are  we  to  do?"  .  .  . 

He  tried  afterwards  to  retrace  that  conversation. 


194  MARRIAGE 

He  was  chiefly  ashamed  of  his  scientific  preoccupa- 
tions during  that  London  interval.  He  had  thought 
of  a  thousand  things ;  Marjorie  had  thought  of  noth- 
ing else  but  love  and  him.  Her  happy  assurance,  her 
absolute  confidence  that  his  desires  would  march  with 
hers,  reproached  and  confuted  every  adverse  thought 
in  him  as  though  it  was  a  treachery  to  love.  He  had 
that  sense  which  I  suppose  comes  at  times  to  every 
man,  of  entire  unworthiness  for  the  straight,  unhesi- 
tating decision,  the  clear  simplicity  of  a  woman's 
passion.  He  had  dreamt  vaguely,  unsubstantially, 
the  while  he  had  arranged  his  pressures  and  tempera- 
tures and  infinitesimal  ingredients,  and  worked  with 
goniometer  and  trial  models  and  the  new  calculating 
machine  he  had  contrived  for  his  research.  But  she 
had  thought  clearly,  definitely,  fully — of  nothing 
but  coming  to  him.  She  had  thought  out  everything 
that  bore  upon  that;  reasons  for  precipitance,  rea- 
sons for  delay,  she  had  weighed  the  rewards  of  con- 
formity against  the  glamour  of  romance.  It  became 
more  and  more  clear  to  him  as  they  talked,  that  she 
was  determined  to  elope  with  him,  to  go  to  Italy,  and 
there  have  an  extraordinarily  picturesque  and  beauti- 
ful time.  Her  definiteness  shamed  his  poverty  of 
anticipation.  Her  enthusiasm  carried  him  with  her. 
Of  course  it  was  so  that  things  must  be  done.  .  .  . 
When  at  last  they  parted  under  the  multiplying 
lamps  of  the  November  twilight,  he  turned  his  face 
eastward.  He  was  afraid  of  his  mother's  eyes — he 
scarcely  knew  why.  He  walked  along  Kensington 
Gore,  and  the  clustering  confused  lights  of  street  and 
house,  white  and  golden  and  orange  and  pale  lilac, 
the  moving  lamps  and  shining  glitter  of  the  traffic, 
the  luminous  interiors  of  omnibuses,  the  reflection  of 
carriage  and  hoarding,  the  fading  daylight  overhead, 
the  phantom  trees  to  the  left,  the  deepening  shadows 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          195 

and  blacknesses  among  the  houses  on  his  right,  the 
bobbing  heads  of  wayfarers,  were  just  for  him  the 
stir  and  hue  and  texture  of  fairyland.  All  the  world 
was  fairyland.  He  went  to  his  club  and  dined  there, 
and  divided  the  evening  between  geography,  as  it  is 
condensed  in  Baedeker  and  Murray  on  North  Italy, 
Italian  Switzerland  and  the  Italian  Riviera,  and  a 
study  of  the  marriage  laws  as  they  are  expounded  in 
"  Whitaker's  Almanac,"  the  "  Encyclopaedia  Britan- 
nica,"  and  other  convenient  works  of  reference.  He 
replaced  the  books  as  he  used  them,  and  went  at  last 
from  the  library  into  the  smoking-room,  but  seeing  a 
man  who  might  talk  to  him  there,  he  went  out  at  once 
into  the  streets,  and  fetched  a  wide  compass  by  Baker 
Street,  Oxford  Street,  and  Hyde  Park,  home. 

He  was  a  little  astonished  at  himself  and  every- 
thing. 

But  it  was  going  to  be — splendid. 

(What  poor  things  words  can  be!)j 

§5 

He  found  his  mother  still  up.  She  had  been  re- 
reading "  The  Old  Wives'  Tale,"  and  she  sat  before 
a  ruddy  fire  in  the  shadow  beyond  the  lit  circle  of  a 
green-shaded  electric  light  thinking,  with  the  book 
put  aside.  In  the  dimness  above  was  his  father's 
portrait.  "  Time  you  were  in  bed,  mother,"  he  said 
reprovingly,  and  kissed  her  eyebrow  and  stood  above 
her.  "  What's  the  book?"  he  asked,  and  picked  it  up 
and  put  it  down,  forgotten.  Their  eyes  met.  She 
perceived  he  had  something  to  say ;  she  did  not  know 
what.  "Where  have  you  been?"  she  asked. 

He  told  her,  and  they  lapsed  into  silence.  She 
asked  another  question  and  he  answered  her,  and  the 
indifferent  conversation  ended  again.  The  silence 


196  MARRIAGE 

lengthened.  Then  he  plunged :  "  I  wonder,  mother, 
if  it  would  put  you  out  very  much  if  I  brought  home 
a  wife  to  you?" 

So  it  had  come  to  this — and  she  had  not  seen  it 
coming.  She  looked  into  the  glowing  recesses  of  the 
fire  before  her  and  controlled  her  voice  by  an  effort. 
"  I'd  be  glad  for  you  to  do  it,  dear — if  you  loved 
her,"  she  said  very  quietly.  He  stared  down  at  her 
for  a  moment;  then  he  knelt  down  beside  her  and 
took  her  hand  and  kissed  it.  "  My  dear,"  she  whis- 
pered softly,  stroking  his  head,  and  her  tears  came 
streaming.  For  a  time  they  said  no  more. 

Presently  he  put  coal  on  the  fire,  and  then  sitting 
on  the  hearthrug  at  her  feet  and  looking  away  from 
her  into  the  flames — in  an  attitude  that  took  her  back 
to  his  boyhood — he  began  to  tell  her  brokenly  and 
awkwardly  of  Marjorie. 

"  It's  so  hard,  mother,  to  explain  these  things," 
he  began.  "  One  doesn't  half  understand  the  things 
that  are  happening  to  one.  I  want  to  make  you  in 
love  with  her,  dear,  just  as  I  am.  And  I  don't  see 
how  I  can." 

"  Perhaps  I  shall  understand,  my  dear.  Perhaps 
I  shall  understand  better  than  you  think." 

"  She's  such  a  beautiful  thing — with  something 

about  her .  You  know  those  steel  blades  you  can 

bend  back  to  the  hilt — and  they're  steel!  And  she's 
tender.  It's  as  if  someone  had  taken  tears,  mother, 
and  made  a  spirit  out  of  them " 

She  caressed  and  stroked  his  hand.  "  My  dear," 
she  said,  "  I  know." 

"  And  a  sort  of  dancing  daring  in  her  eyes." 

"  Yes,"  she  said.  "  But  tell  me  where  she  comes 
from,  and  how  you  met  her — and  all  the  circumstan- 
tial things  that  a  sensible  old  woman  can  under- 
stand." 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          197 

He  kissed  her  hand  and  sat  down  beside  her,  with 
his  shoulder  against  the  arm  of  her  chair,  his  fingers 
interlaced  about  his  knee.  She  could  not  keep  her 
touch  from  his  hair,  and  she  tried  to  force  back  the 
thought  in  her  mind  that  all  these  talks  must  end, 
that  very  soon  indeed  they  would  end.  And  she  was 
glad,  full  of  pride  and  joy  too  that  her  son  was  a 
lover  after  her  heart,  a  clean  and  simple  lover  as  his 
father  had  been  before  him.  He  loved  this  unknown 
Marjorie,  finely,  sweetly,  bravely,  even  as  she  herself 
could  have  desired  to  have  been  loved.  She  told  her- 
self she  did  not  care  very  greatly  even  if  this  Mar- 
jorie should  prove  unworthy.  So  long  as  her  son  was 
not  unworthy. 

He  pieced  his  story  together.  He  gave  her  a 
picture  of  the  Popes,  Marjorie  in  her  family  like  a 
jewel  in  an  ugly  setting,  so  it  seemed  to  him,  and  the 
queer  dull  rage  of  her  father  and  all  that  they  meant 
to  do.  She  tried  to  grasp  his  perplexities  and  advise, 
but  chiefly  she  was  filled  with  the  thought  that  he  was 
in  love.  If  he  wanted  a  girl  he  should  have  her,  and 
if  he  had  to  take  her  by  force,  well,  wasn't  it  his 
right  ?  She  set  small  store  upon  the  Popes  that  night 
— or  any  circumstances.  And  since  she  herself  had 
married  on  the  slightest  of  security,  she  was  concern- 
ed very  little  that  this  great  adventure  was  to  be 
attempted  on  an  income  of  a  few  hundreds  a  year. 
It  was  outside  her  philosophy  that  a  wife  should  be 
anything  but  glad  to  tramp  the  roads  if  need  be  with 
the  man  who  loved  her.  He  sketched  out  valiant 
plans,  was  for  taking  Marjorie  away  in  the  teeth  of 
all  opposition  and  bringing  her  back  to  London.  It 
would  have  to  be  done  decently,  of  course,  but  it 
would  have,  he  thought,  to  be  done.  Mrs.  Trafford 
found  the  prospect  perfect;  never  before  had  he 
sounded  and  looked  so  like  that  dim  figure  which  hung 


198  MARRIAGE 

still  and  sympathetic  above  them.  Ever  and  again 
she  glanced  up  at  her  husband's  quiet  face.  .  .  . 

On  one  point  she  was  very  clear  with  him. 

"You'll  live  with  us,  mother?"  he  said  abruptly. 

"  Not  with  you.  As  near  as  you  like.  But  one 
house,  one  woman.  .  .  .  I'll  have  a  little  flat  of  my 
own — for  you  both  to  come  to  me." 

"  Oh,  nonsense,  mother !  You'll  have  to  be  with 
us.  Living  alone,  indeed!" 

"  My  dear,  I'd  prefer  a  flat  of  my  own.  You 
don't  understand — everything.  It  will  be  better  for 
all  of  us  like  that." 

There  came  a  little  pause  between  them,  and  then 
her  hand  was  on  his  head  again.  "  Oh,  my  dear,"  she 
said,  "  I  want  you  to  be  happy.  And  life  can  be  diffi- 
cult. I  won't  give  a  chance — for  things  to  go  wrong. 
You're  hers,  dear,  and  you've  got  to  be  hers — be  each 
other's  altogether.  I've  watched  so  many  people. 
And  that's  the  best,  the  very  best  you  can  have. 
There's  just  the  lovers — the  real  enduring  lovers ;  and 
the  uncompleted  people  who've  failed  to  find  it."  .  .  . 

§6 

Trafford's  second  meeting  with  Marjorie,  which, 
by  the  by,  happened  on  the  afternoon  of  the  following 
day,  brought  them  near  to  conclusive  decisions.  The 
stiffness  of  their  first  encounter  in  London  had  alto- 
gether vanished.  She  was  at  her  prettiest  and  in  the 
highest  spirits — and  she  didn't  care  for  anything  else 
in  the  world.  A  gauzy  silk  scarf  which  she  had 
bought  and  not  paid  for  that  day  floated  atmospheri- 
cally about  her  straight  trim  body;  her  hair  had 
caught  the  infection  of  insurrection  and  was  waving 
rebelliously  about  her  ears.  As  he  drew  near  her  his 
grave  discretion  passed  from  him  as  clouds  pass  from 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          199 

a  hillside.  She  smiled  radiantly.  He  held  out  both 
his  hands  for  both  of  hers,  and  never  did  a  maiden 
come  so  near  and  yet  not  get  a  public  and  shameless 
kissing. 

One  could  as  soon  describe  music  as  tell  their 
conversation.  It  was  a  matter  of  tones  and1  feelings. 
But  the  idea  of  flight  together,  of  the  bright  awaken- 
ing in  unfamiliar  sunshine  with  none  to  come  between 
them,  had  gripped  them  both.  A  certain  sober  grav- 
ity of  discussion  only  masked  that  deeper  inebriety. 
It  would  be  easy  for  them  to  get  away;  he  had  no 
lectures  until  February;  he  could,  he  said,  make  ar- 
rangements, leave  his  research.  She  dreaded  dis- 
putation. She  was  for  a  simple  disappearance,  notes 
on  pincushions  and  defiantly  apologetic  letters  from 
Boulogne,  but  his  mother's  atmosphere  had  been  a 
gentler  one  than  her  home's,  with  a  more  powerful 
disposition  to  dignity.  He  still  couldn't  understand 
that  the  cantankerous  egotism  of  Pope  was  indeed  the 
essential  man ;  it  seemed  to  him  a  crust  of  bad  man- 
ners that  reason  ought  to  pierce. 

The  difference  in  their  atmospheres  came  out  in 
their  talk — in  his  desire  for  a  handsome  and  dignified* 
wedding — though  the  very  heavens  protested — and 
her  resolve  to  cut  clear  of  every  one,  to  achieve  a  sort 
of  gaol  delivery  of  her  life,  make  a  new  beginning 
altogether,  with  the  minimum  of  friction  and  the 
maximum  of  surprise.  Unused  to  fighting,  he  was 
magnificently  prepared  to  fight;  she,  with  her  inti- 
mate knowledge  of  chronic  domestic  conflict,  was  for 
the  evasion  of  *?11  the  bickerings,  scoldings,  and  mis- 
representations his  challenge  would  occasion.  He 
thought  in  his  innocence  a  case  could  be  stated  and 
discussed;  but  no  family  discussion  she  had  ever 
heard  had  even  touched  the  realities  of  the  issue  that 
occasioned  it. 


200  MARRIAGE 

"  I  don't  like  this  underhand  preparation,"  he 
said. 

"  Nor  I,"  she  echoed.     "  But  what  can  one  do?" 

"  Well,  oughtn't  I  to  go  to  your  father  and  give 
him  a  chance?  Why  shouldn't  I?  It's — the  dignified 
way." 

"  It  won't  be  dignified  for  father,"  said  Marjorie, 
"  anyhow." 

"  But  what  right  has  he  to  object?" 

"  He  isn't  going  to  discuss  his  rights  with  you. 
He  will  object." 

"  But  why?" 

"  Oh !  because  he's  started  that  way.  He  hit  you. 
I  haven't  forgotten  it.  Well,  if  he  goes  back  on  that 

now He'd  rather  die  than  go  back  on  it.  You 

see,  he's  ashamed  in  his  heart.  It  would  be  like  con- 
fessing himself  wrong  not  to  keep  it  up  that  you're 
the  sort  of  man  one  hits.  He  just  hates  you  because 
he  hit  you.  I  haven't  been  his  daughter  for  twenty- 
one  years  for  nothing." 

"  I'm  thinking  of  us,"  said  Trafford.  "  I  don't 
see  we  oughtn't  to  go  to  him  just  because  he's  likely 
to  be — unreasonable." 

"  My  dear,  do  as  you  please.  He'll  forbid  and' 
shout,  and  hit  tables  until  things  break.  Suppose  he 
locks  me  up !" 

"  Oh,  Habeas  Corpus,  and  my  strong  right  arm ! 
He's  much  more  likely  to  turn  you  out-of-doors." 

"  Not  if  he  thinks  the  other  will  annoy  you  more. 
I'll  have  to  bear  a  storm." 

"  Not  for  long." 

"  He'll  bully  mother  till  she  cries  over  me.  But 

do  as  you  please.  She'll  come  and  she'll  beg  me 

Do  as  you  please.  Perhaps  I'm  a  coward.  I'd  far 
rather  I  could  slip  away." 

Trafford  thought  for  a  moment.    "  I'd  far  rather 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL         201 

you  could,"  he  answered,  in  a  voice  that  spoke  of 
inflexible  determinations. 

They  turned  to  the  things  they  meant  to  do. 
"  Italy!"  she  whispered,  "  Italy!"  Her  face  was 
alight  with  her  burning  expectation  of  beauty,  of 
love,  of  the  new  heaven  and  the  new  earth  that  lay 
before  them.  The  intensity  of  that  desire  blazing 
through  her  seemed  to  shame  his  dull  discretions.  He 
had  to  cling  to  his  resolution,  lest  it  should  vanish  in 
that  contagious  intoxication. 

"  You  understand  I  shall  come  to  your  father," 
he  said,  as  they  drew  near  the  gate  where  it  seemed 
discreet  for  them  to  part. 

"  It  will  make  it  harder  to  get  away,"  she  said, 
with  no  apparent  despondency.  "  It  won't  stop  us. 
Oh !  do  as  you  please." 

She  seemed  to  dismiss  the  question,  and  stood 
hand-in-hand  with  him  in  a  state  of  glowing  gravity. 
She  wouldn't  see  him  again  for  four-and-twenty  hours. 
Then  a  thought  came  into  her  head — a  point  of 
great  practical  moment. 

"  Oh F'  she  said,  "  of  course,  you  won't  tell 
father  you've  seen  me." 

She  met  his  eye.  "  Really  you  mustn't,"  she  said. 
"  You  see — he'll  make  a  row  with  mother  for  not 
having  watched  me  better.  I  don't  know  what  he 
isn't  likely  to  do.  It  isn't  myself This  is  a  con- 
fidential communication — all  this.  No  one  in  this 
world  knows  I  am  meeting  you.  If  you  must  go  to 
him,  go  to  him." 

"For  myself?" 

She  nodded,  with  her  open  eyes  on  his — eyes  that 
looked  now  very  blue  and  very  grave,  and  her  lips  a 
little  apart. 

She  surprised  him  a  little,  but  even  this  sudden 
weakness  seemed  adorable. 


202  MARRIAGE 

«  All  right,"  he  said. 

"  You  don't  think  that  I'm  shirking ?"  she 

asked,  a  little  too  eagerly. 

"  You  know  your  father  best,"  he  answered. 
*  I'll  tell  you  all  he  says  and  all  the  terror  of  him  here 
to-morrow  afternoon." 

§7 

In  the  stillness  of  the  night  Trafford  found  him- 
4elf  thinking  over  Marjorie;  it  was  a  new  form  of 
ssnental  exercise,  which  was  destined  to  play  a  large 
part  in  his  existence  for  many  subsequent  years. 
There  had  come  a  shadow  on  his  confidence  in  her. 
3he  was  a  glorious  person;  she  had  a  kind  of  fire 
behind  her  and  in  her — shining  through  her,  like 

the  lights  in  a  fire-opal,  but He  wished  she  had 

not  made  him  promise  to  conceal  their  meeting  and 
their  close  co-operation  from  her  father.  Why  did 
she  do  that?  It  would  spoil  his  case  with  her  father, 
&nd  it  could  forward  things  for  them  in  no  conceiv- 
able way.  And  from  that,  in  some  manner  too  subtle 
to  trace,  he  found  his  mind  wandering  to  another 
problem,  which  was  destined  to  reappear  with  a 
slowly  dwindling  importance  very  often  in  this  pro- 
cedure of  thinking  over  Marjorie  in  the  small  hours. 
It  was  the  riddle — it  never  came  to  him  in  the  day- 
time, but  only  in  those  intercalary  and  detachedly 
critical  periods  of  thought — why  exactly  had  she 
engaged  herself  to  Magnet?  Why  had  she?  He 
couldn't  imagine  himself,  in  Marjorie's  position, 
doing  anything  of  the  sort.  Marjorie  had  ways  of 
her  own;  she  was  different.  .  .  .  Well,  anyhow, 
she  was  splendid  and  loving  and  full  of  courage. 
.  .  .  He  had  got  no  further  than  this  when  at  last 
he  fell  asleep. 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          203 

§8 

Trafford's  little  attempt  to  regularise  his  position 
was  as  creditable  to  him  as  it  was  inevitably  futile. 
He  sought  out  29,  Hartstone  Square  in  the  morning 
on  his  way  to  his  laboratory,  and  he  found  it  one  of 
a  great  row  of  stucco  houses  each  with  a  portico  and 
a  dining-room  window  on  the  ground  floor,  and  each 
with  a  railed  area  from  which  troglodytic  servants 
peeped.  Collectively  the  terrace  might  claim  a  cer- 
tain ugly  dignity  of  restraint,  there  was  none  of  your 
Queen  Anne  nonsense  of  art  or  beauty  about  it,  and 
the  narrow  height,  the  subterranean  kitchens  of  each 
constituent  house,  told  of  a  steep  relentless  staircase 
and  the  days  before  the  pampering  of  the  lower  class- 
es began.  The  houses  formed  a  square,  as  if  the 
British  square  so  famous  at  Waterloo  for  its  dogged 
resistance  to  all  the  forces  of  the  universe  had  immor- 
talized itself  in  buildings,  and  they  stared  upon  a 
severely  railed  garden  of  hardy  shrubs  and  gravel  to 
which  the  tenants  had  the  inestimable  privilege  of 
access.  They  did  not  use  it  much,  that  was  their 
affair,  but  at  any  rate  they  had  keys  and  a  nice 
sense  of  rights  assured,  and  at  least  it  kept  other 
people  out. 

Trafford  turned  out  of  a  busy  high  road  full  of 
the  mixed  exhilarating  traffic  of  our  time,  and  came 
along  a  quiet  street  into  this  place,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  he  had  come  into  a  corner  of  defence  and  retreat, 
into  an  atmosphere  of  obstinate  and  unteachable 
resistances.  But  this  illusion  of  conservativism  in  its 
last  ditch  was  dispelled  altogether  in  Mr.  Pope's  por- 
tico. Youth  flashed  out  of  these  solemnities  like  a 
dart  shot  from  a  cave.  Trafford  was  raising  his 
hand  to  the  solid  brass  knocker  when  abruptly  it  was 
snatched  from  his  fingers,  the  door  was  flung  open 


204  MARRIAGE 

and  a  small  boy  with  a  number  of  dirty  books  in  a 
strap  flew  out  and  hit  him  with  projectile  violence. 

"  Blow !"  said  the  young  gentleman  recoiling,  and 
Trafford  recovering  said :  "  Hullo,  Theodore !" 

"Lord!"  said  Theodore  breathless,  "It's  you! 
What  a  lark!  Your  name's  never  mentioned — no 
how.  What  did  you  do?  .  .  .  Wish  I  could  stop 
and  see  it!  I'm  ten  minutes  late.  Ave  atque  vale. 
So  long!" 

He  vanished  with  incredible  velocity.  And  Mr. 
Trafford  was  alone  in  possession  of  the  open  doorway 
except  for  Toupee,  who  after  a  violent  outbreak  of 
hostility  altered  his  mind  and  cringed  to  his  feet  in 
abject  and  affectionate  propitiation.  A  pseudo-twin 
appeared,  said  "  Hello !"  and  vanished,  and  then  he 
had  an  instant's  vision  of  Mr.  Pope,  newspaper  in 
hand,  appearing  from  the  dining-room.  His  expres- 
sion of  surprise  changed  to  malevolence,  and  he  dart- 
ed back  into  the  room  from  which  he  had  emerged. 
Trafford  decided  to  take  the  advice  of  a  small  brass 
plate  on  his  left  hand,  and  "  ring  also." 

A  housemaid  came  out  of  the  bowels  of  the  earth 
very  promptly  and  ushered  him  up  two  flights  of 
stairs  into  what  was  manifestly  Mr.  Pope's  study. 

It  was  a  narrow,  rather  dark  room  lit  by  two 
crimson-curtained  windows,  and  with  a  gas  fire  before 
which  Mr.  Pope's  walking  boots  were  warming  for 
the  day.  The  apartment  revealed  to  Trafford's  cur- 
sory inspection  many  of  the  stigmata  of  an  English- 
man of  active  intelligence  and  literary  tastes.  There 
in  the  bookcase  were  the  collected  works  of  Scott,  a 
good  large  illustrated  Shakespeare  in  numerous  vol- 
umes, and  a  complete  set  of  bound  Punches  from  the 
beginning.  A  pile  of  back  numbers  of  the  Times 
stood  on  a  cane  stool  in  a  corner,  and  in  a  little  book- 
case handy  for  the  occupier  of  the  desk  were  Whita- 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          205 

ker,  Wisden  and  an  old  peerage.  The  desk  bore 
traces  of  recent  epistolary  activity,  and  was  littered 
with  the  printed  matter  of  Aunt  Plessington's  move- 
ments. Two  or  three  recent  issues  of  The  Financial 
Review  of  Reviews  were  also  visible.  About  the  room 
hung  steel  engravings  apparently  of  defunct  judges 
or  at  any  rate  of  exceedingly  grim  individuals,  and 
over  the  mantel  were  trophies  of  athletic  prowess,  a 
bat  witnessing  that  Mr.  Pope  had1  once  captained  the 
second  eleven  at  Harrogby. 

Mr.  Pope  entered  with  a  stern  expression  and  a 
sentence  prepared.  "  Well,  sir,"  he  said  with  a  note 
of  ironical  affability,  "  to  what  may  I  ascribe  this — • 
intrusion  ?" 

Mr.  Trafford  was  about  to  reply  when  Mr.  Pope 
interrupted.  "  Will  you  be  seated,"  he  said,  and 
turned  his  desk  chair  about  for  himself,  and  occupy- 
ing it,  crossed  his  legs  and  pressed  the  finger  tips  of 
his  two  hands  together.  "  Well,  sir?"  he  said. 

Trafford  remained  standing  astraddle  over  the 
boots  before  the  gas  fire. 

"  Look  here,  sir,"  he  said ;  "  I  am  in  love  with  your 
daughter.  She's  one  and  twenty,  and  I  want  to  see 

her — and  in  fact "  He  found  it  hard  to  express 

himself.  He  could  think  only  of  a  phrase  that  sound- 
ed ridiculous.  "  I  want — in  fact — to  pay  my  ad- 
dresses to  her." 

"  Well,  sir,  I  don't  want  you  to  do  so.  That  is 
too  mild.  I  object  strongly — very  strongly.  My 
daughter  has  been  engaged  to  a  very  distinguished 
and  able  man,  and  I  hope  very  shortly  to  hear  that 

that  engagement Practically  it  is  still  going  on. 

I  don't  want  you  to  intrude  upon  my  daughter  fur- 
ther." 

"  But  look  here,  sir.  There's  a  certain  justice — « 
I  mean  a  certain  reasonableness-  - — " 


20(5  MARRIAGE 

Mr.  Pope  held  out  an  arresting  hand.  "  I  don't 
wish  it.  Let  that  be  enough." 

"  Of  course  it  isn't  enough.  I'm  in  love  with  her 
— and  she  with  me.  I'm  an  entirely  reputable  and 
decent  person " 

"  May  I  be  allowed  to  judge  what  is  or  is  not 

suitable  companionship  for  my  daughter and  what 

may  or  may  not  be  the  present  state  of  her  affec- 
tions?" 

"  Well,  that's  rather  the  point  we  are  discussing. 
After  all,  Marjorie  isn't  a  baby.  I  want  to  do  all 
this — this  affair,  openly  and  properly  if  I  can,  but, 
you  know,  I  mean  to  marry  Marjorie — anyhow." 

"  There  are  two  people  to  consult  in  that  matter." 

"  I'll  take  the  risk  of  that." 

"  Permit  me  to  differ." 

A  feeling  of  helplessness  came  over  Trafford.  The 
curious  irritation  Mr.  Pope  always  roused  in  him 
began  to  get  the  better  of  him.  His  face  flushed 
hotly.  "  Oh  really !  really !  this  is — this  is  non- 
sense!" he  cried.  "I  never  heard  anything  so  child- 
ish and  pointless  as  your  objection " 

"  Be  careful,  sir!"  cried  Mr.  Pope,  " be  careful!" 

"  I'm  going  to  marry  Marjorie." 

"  If  she  marries  you,  sir,  she  shall  never  darken 
my  doors  again !" 

"  If  you  had  a  thing  against  me  I" 

"Haven't  I!" 

"What  have  you?" 

There  was  a  quite  perceptible  pause  before  Pope 
fired  his  shot. 

"  Does  any  decent  man  want  the  name  of  Traf- 
ford associated  with  his  daughter.  Trafford !  Look 
at  the  hoardings,  sir!" 

A  sudden  blaze  of  anger  lit  Trafford.  "  My 
God !"  he  cried  and  clenched  his  fists  and  seemed  for 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          207 

a  moment  ready  to  fall  upon  the  man  before  him. 
Then  he  controlled  himself  by  a  violent  effort.  "  You 
believe  in  that  libel  on  my  dead  father?"  he  said, 
with  white  lips. 

"  Has  it  ever  been  answered?" 

"A  hundred  times.  And  anyhow! — Confound  it! 
I  don't  believe — you  believe  it.  You've  raked  it  up — 
as  an  excuse !  You  want  an  excuse  for  your  infernal 
domestic  tyranny !  That's  the  truth  of  it.  You  can't 
bear  a  creature  in  your  household  to  have  a  will  or 
preference  of  her  own.  I  tell  you,  sir,  you  are  intol- 
erable— intolerable !" 

He  was  shouting,  and  Pope  was  standing  now  and 
shouting  too.  "  Leave  my  house,  sir.  Get  out  of 
my  house,  sir.  You  come  here  to  insult  me,  sir!" 

A  sudden  horror  of  himself  and  Pope  seized  the 
younger  man.  He  stiffened  and  became  silent.  Never 
in  his  life  before  had  he  been  in  a  bawling  quarrel. 
He  was  amazed  and  ashamed. 

"  Leave  my  house !"  cried  Pope  with  an  imperious 
gesture  towards  the  door. 

Trafford  made  an  absurd  effort  to  save  the  situa- 
tion. "  I  am  sorry,  sir,  I  lost  my  temper.  I  had  no 
business  to  abuse  you- " 

"You've  said  enough." 

"  I  apologise  for  that.  I've  done  what  I  could  to 
manage  things  decently." 

"  Will  you  go,  sir?"  threatened  Mr.  Pope. 

"  I'm  sorry  I  came,"  said  Trafford. 

Mr.  Pope  took  his  stand  with  folded  arms  and  an 
expression  of  weary  patience. 

"  I  did  what  I  could,"  said  Trafford  at  the  door. 

The  staircase  and  passage  were  deserted.  The 
whole  house  seemed  to  have  caught  from  Mr.  Pope 
that  same  quality  of  seeing  him  out.  .  .  . 


208  MARRIAGE 

"Confound  it!"  said  Trafford'  in  the  street. 
"  How  on  earth  did  all  this  happen  ?"  .  .  . 

He  turned  eastward,  and  then  realized  that  work 
would  be  impossible  that  day.  He  changed  his  direc- 
tion for  Kensington  Gardens,  and  in  the  flower-bor- 
dered walk  near  the  Albert  Memorial  he  sat  down 
on  a  chair,  and  lugged  at  his  moustache  and  won- 
dered. He  was  extraordinarily  perplexed,  as  well  as 
ashamed  and  enraged  by  this  uproar.  How  had  it 
begun?  Of  course,  he  had  been  stupidly  abusive,  but 
the  insult  to  his  father  had  been  unendurable.  Did  a 
man  of  Pope's  sort  quite  honestly  believe  that  stuff? 
If  he  didn't,  he  deserved  kicking.  If  he  did,  of  course 
he  was  entitled  to  have  it  cleared  up.  But  then  he 
wouldn't  listen !  Was  there  any  case  for  the  man  at 
all?  Had  he,  Trafford,  really  put  the  thing  so  that 
Pope  would  listen?  He  couldn't  remember.  What 
was  it  he  had  said  in  reply  to  Pope?  What  was  it 
exactly  that  Pope  had  said? 

It  was  already  vague;  it  was  a  confused  memory 
of  headlong  words  and  answers ;  what  wasn't  vague, 
what  rang  in  his  ears  still,  was  the  hoarse  discord  of 
two  shouting  voices. 

Could  Marjorie  have  heard? 

§9 

So  Marjorie  carried  her  point.  She  wasn't  to  be 
married  tamely  after  the  common  fashion  which  trails 
home  and  all  one's  beginnings  into  the  new  life.  She 
was  to  be  eloped  with,  romantically  and  splendidly, 
into  a  glorious  new  world.  She  walked  on  shining 
clouds,  and  if  she  felt  some  remorse,  it  was  a  very 
tender  and  satisfactory  remorse,  and  with  a  clear 
conviction  below  it  that  in  the  end  she  would  be 
forgiven. 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL          209 

They  made  all  their  arrangements  elaborately  and 
carefully.  Trafford  got  a  license  to  marry  her;  she 
was  to  have  a  new  outfit  from  ,top  to  toe  to  go  away 
with  on  that  eventful  day.  It  accumulated  in  the 
shop,  and  they  marked  the  clothes  M.T.  She  was 
watched,  she  imagined,  but  as  her  father  did  not 
know  she  had  seen  Trafford,  nothing  had  been  said  to 
her,  and  no  attempt  was  made  to  prohibit  her  going 
out  and  coming  in.  Trafford  entered  into  the  con- 
spiracy with  a  keen  interest,  a  certain  amusement, 
and  a  queer  little  feeling  of  distaste.  He  hated  to 
hide  any  act  of  his  from  any  human  being.  The  very 
soul  of  scientific  work,  you  see,  is  publication.  But 
Marjorie  seemed  to  justify  all  things,  and  when  his 
soul  turned  against  furtiveness,  he  reminded  it  that 
the  alternative  was  bawling. 

One  eventful  afternoon  he  went  to  the  college,  and 
Marjorie  slipped  round  by  his  arrangement  to  have 
tea  with  Mrs.  Trafford.  .  .  . 

He  returned  about  seven  in  a  state  of  nervous 
apprehension ;  came  upstairs  two  steps  at  a  time,  and 
stopped  breathless  on  the  landing.  He  gulped  as  he 
came  in,  and  his  eyes  were  painfully  eager.  "She's 
been?"  he  asked. 

But  Marjorie  had  won  Mrs.  Trafford. 

"  She's  been,"  she  answered.  "  Yes,  she's  all  right, 
my  dear." 

"Oh,  mother!"  he  said. 

"  She's  a  beautiful  creature,  dear — and  such  a 
child !  Oh !  such  a  child !  And  God  bless  you,  dear, 
God  bless  you.  .  .  . 

"  I  think  all  young  people  are  children.  I  want  to 
take  you  both  in  my  arms  and  save  you.  .  .  .  I'm 
talking  nonsense,  dear." 

He  kissed  her,  and  she  clung  to  him  as  if  he  were 
something  too  precious  to  release. 


210  MARRIAGE 

§  10 

The  elopement  was  a  little  complicated  by  a  sur- 
prise manoeuvre  of  Mrs.  Pope's.  She  was  more  alive 
to  the  quality  of  the  situation,  poor  lady!  than  her 
daughter  suspected;  she  was  watching,  dreading, 
perhaps  even  furtively  sympathizing  and  trying  to 
arrange — oh !  trying  dreadfully  to  arrange.  She  had 
an  instinctive  understanding  of  the  deep  blue  quiet  in 
Marjorie's  eyes,  and  the  girl's  unusual  tenderness 
with  Daffy  and  the  children.  She  peeped  under  the 
blind  as  Marjorie  went  out,  noted  the  care  in  her 
dress,  watched  her  face  as  she  returned,  never  plumb- 
ed her  with  a  question  for  fear  of  the  answer.  She 
did  not  dare  to  breathe  a  hint  of  her  suspicions  to 
her  husband,  but  she  felt  things  were  adrift  in  swift, 
smooth  water,  and  all  her  soul  cried  out  for  delay. 
So  presently  there  came  a  letter  from  Cousin  Susan 
Pendexter  at  Plymouth.  The  weather  was  beautiful, 
Marjorie  must  come  at  once,  pack  up  and  come  and 
snatch  the  last  best  glow  of  the  dying  autumn  away 
there  in  the  west.  Marjorie's  jerry-built  excuses, 
her  manifest  chagrin  and  reluctance,  confirmed  her 
mother's  worst  suspicions. 

She  submitted  and  went,  and  Mrs.  Pope  and  Syd 
saw  her  off. 

I  do  not  like  to  tell  how  a  week  later  Marjorie 
explained  herself  and  her  dressing-bag  and  a  few 
small  articles  back  to  London  from  Plymouth.  Suf- 
fice it  that  she  lied  desperately  and  elaborately.  Her 
mother  had  never  achieved  such  miracles  of  mis-state- 
ment, and  she  added  a  vigour  that  was  all  her  own. 
It  is  easier  to  sympathize  with  her  than  exonerate 
her.  She  was  in  a  state  of  intense  impatience,  and — 
what  is  strange — extraordinarily  afraid  that  some- 
thing would  separate  her  from  her  lover  if  she  did 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL         211 

not  secure  him.  She  was  in  a  fever  of  determination. 
She  could  not  eat  or  sleep  or  attend  to  anything  what- 
ever ;  she  was  occupied  altogether  with  the  thought  of 
assuring  herself  to  Trafford.  He  towered  in  her 
waking  vision  over  town  and  land  and  sea. 

He  didn't  hear  the  lies  she  told ;  he  only  knew  she 
was  magnificently  coming  back  to  him.  He  met  her  at 
Paddington,  a  white-faced,  tired,  splendidly  resolute 
girl,  and  they  went  to  the  waiting  registrar's  forth- 
with. 

She  bore  herself  with  the  intentness  and  dignity  of 
one  who  is  taking  the  cardinal  step  in  life.  They 
kissed  as  though  it  was  a  symbol,  and  were  keenly 
business-like  about  cabs  and  luggage  and  trains.  At 
last  they  were  alone  in  the  train  together.  They 
stared  at  one  another. 

"  We've  done  it,  Mrs.  Trafford !"  said  Trafford. 

She  snapped  like  an  over-taut  string,  crumpled, 
clung  to  him,  and  without  a  word  was  weeping  pas- 
sionately in  his  arms. 

It  surprised  him  that  she  could  weep  as  she  did, 
and  still  more  to  see  her  as  she  walked  by  his  side 
along  the  Folkestone  pier,  altogether  recovered, 
erect,  a  little  flushed  and  excited  like  a  child.  She 
seemed  to  miss  nothing.  "  Oh,  smell  the  sea !"  she 
said,  "  Look  at  the  lights  !  Listen  to  the  swish  of  the 
water  below."  She  watched  the  luggage  spinning  on 
the  wire  rope  of  the  giant  crane,  and  he  watched  her 
face  and  thought  how  beautiful  she  was.  He  won- 
dered why  her  eyes  could  sometimes  be  so  blue  and 
sometimes  dark  as  night. 

The  boat  cleared  the  pier  and  turned  about  and 
headed  for  France.  They  walked  the  upper  deck 
together  and  stood  side  by  side,  she  very  close  to  him. 

"  I've  never  crossed  the  sea  before,"  she  said. 

"  Old  England,"  she  whispered.     "  It's  like  leav- 


212  MARRIAGE 

ing  a  nest.  A  little  row  of  lights  and  that's  all  the 
world  I've  ever  known,  shrunken  to  that  already." 

Presently  they  went  forward  and  peered  into  the 
night. 

"Look!"  she  said.  "Italy!  There's  sunshine 
and  all  sorts  of  beautiful  things  ahead.  Warm  sun- 
shine, wonderful  old  ruins,  green  lizards.  .  .  ." 
She  paused  and  whispered  almost  noiselessly: 
"  love " 

They  pressed  against  each  other. 

"  And  yet  isn't  it  strange  ?  All  you  can  see  is 
darkness,  and  clouds — and  big  waves  that  hiss  as  they 


come  near. 


Italy  gave  all  her  best  to  welcome  them.  It  was  a 
late  year,  a  golden  autumn,  with  skies  of  such  blue  as 
Marjorie  had  never  seen  before.  They  stayed  at  first 
in  a  pretty  little  Italian  hotel  with  a  garden  on  the 
lake,  and  later  they  walked  over  Salvator  to  Morcote 
and  by  boat  to  Ponte  Tresa,  and  thence  they  had  the 
most  wonderful  and  beautiful  tramp  in  the  world  to 
Luino,  over  the  hills  by  Castelrotto.  To  the  left  of 
them  all  day  was  a  broad  valley  with  low-lying  vil- 
lages swimming  in  a  luminous  mist,  to  the  right  were 
purple  mountains.  They  passed  through  paved 
streets  with  houses  the  colour  of  flesh  and  ivory,  with 
balconies  hung  with  corn  and  gourds,  with  tall  church 
campaniles  rising  high,  and  great  archways  giving 
upon  the  blue  lowlands ;  they  tramped  along  avenues 
of  sweet  chestnut  and  between  stretches  of  exuberant 
vineyard,  in  which  men  and  women  were  gathering 
grapes — purple  grapes,  a  hatful  for  a  soldo,  that 
rasped  the  tongue.  Everything  was  strange  and 
wonderful  to  Marjorie's  eyes ;  now  it  would  be  a  way- 


A  TELEPHONE  CALL         213 

side  shrine  and  now  a  yoke  of  soft-going,  dewlapped 
oxen,  now  a  chapel  hung  about  with  ex  votos,  and 
now  some  unfamiliar  cultivation — or  a  gipsy-eyed 
child — or  a  scorpion  that  scuttled  in  the  dust.  The 
very  names  of  the  villages  were  like  jewels  to  her, 
Varasca,  Croglio,  Ronca,  Sesia,  Monteggio.  They 
walked,  or  sat  by  the  wayside  and  talked,  or  rested  at 
the  friendly  table  of  some  kindly  albergo.  A  woman 
as  beautiful  as  Ceres,  with  a  white  neck  all  open, 
made  them  an  omelette,  and  then  fetched  her  baby 
from  its  cradle  to  nurse  it  while  she  talked  to  them 
as  they  made  their  meal.  And  afterwards  she  filled 
their  pockets  with  roasted  chestnuts,  and  sent  them 
with  melodious  good  wishes  upon  their  way.  And 
always  high  over  all  against  the  translucent  blue 
hung  the  white  shape  of  Monte  Rosa,  that  warmed 
in  colour  as  the  evening  came. 

Marjorie's  head  was  swimming  with  happiness 
and  beauty,  and  with  every  fresh  delight  she  recurred 
again  to  the  crowning  marvel  of  this  clean-limbed 
man  beside  her,  who  smiled  and  carried  all  her  lug- 
gage in  a  huge  rucksack  that  did  not  seem  to  exist  for 
him,  and  watched  her  and  caressed  her — and  was 
hers,  hers! 

At  Baveno  there  were  letters.  They  sat  at  a  little 
table  outside  a  cafe  and  read  them,  suddenly  mind- 
ful of  England  again.  Incipient  forgiveness  showed 
through  Mrs.  Pope's  reproaches,  and  there  was  also  a 
simple,  tender  love-letter  (there  is  no  other  word  for 
it)  from  old  Mrs.  Trafford  to  her  son. 

From  Baveno  they  set  off  up  Monte  Mottarone — 
whence  one  may  see  the  Alps  from  Visto  to  Ortler 
Spitz — trusting  to  find  the  inn  still  open,  and  if  it  was 
closed  to  get  down  to  Orta  somehow  before  night.  Or 
at  the  worst  sleep  upon  the  mountain  side. 


214  MARRIAGE 

(Monte  Mottarone !  Just  for  a  moment  taste  the 
sweet  Italian  name  upon  your  lips.)  These  were  the 
days  before  the  funicular  from  Stresa,  when  one 
trudged  up  a  rude  path  through  the  chestnuts  and 
walnuts. 

As  they  ascended  the  long  windings  through  the 
woods,  they  met  an  old  poet  and  his  wife,  coming  down 
from  sunset  and  sunrise.  There  was  a  word  or  two 
about  the  inn,  and  they  went  upon  their  way.  The 
old  man  turned  ever  and  again  to  look  at  them. 

"  Adorable  young  people,"  he  said.  "  Adorable 
happy  young  people.  .  .  . 

"  Did  you  notice,  dear,  how  she  held  that  dainty 
little  chin  of  hers  ?  .  .  . 

"  Pride  is  such  a  good  thing,  my  dear,  clear, 
straight  pride  like  theirs — and  they  were  both  so 
proud!  .  .  . 

"  Isn't  it  good,  dear,  to  think  that  once  you  and  I 
may  have  looked  like  that  to  some  passer-by.  I  wish 
I  could  bless  them — sweet,  swift  young  things!  I 
wish,  dear,  it  was  possible  for  old  men  to  bless  young 
people  without  seeming  to  set  up  for  saints.  ..." 


BOOK  THE  SECOND 

MARJORIE  MARRIED 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 

SETTLING  DOWN 

§1 

IT  was  in  a  boat  among  reeds  upon  the  lake  of  Orta 
that  Trafford  first  became  familiarized  with  the  idea 
that  Marjorie  was  capable  of  debt. 

"  Oh,  I  ought  to  have  told  you,"  she  began, 
apropos  of  nothing. 

Her  explanation  was  airy;  she  had  let  the  thing 
slip  out  of  her  mind  for  a  time.  But  there  were 
various  debts  to  Oxbridge  tradespeople.  How  much? 
Well,  rather  a  lot.  Of  course,  the  tradespeople  were 

rather  enticing  when  first  one  went  up How  much, 

anyhow  ? 

"  Oh,  about  fifty  pounds,"  said  Marjorie,  after 
her  manner.  "  Not  more.  I've  not  kept  all  the  bills ; 
and  some  haven't  come  in.  You  know  how  slow  they 
are." 

"  These  things  mil  happen,"  said  Trafford, 
though,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  nothing  of  the  sort  had 
happened  in  his  case.  "  However,  you'll  be  able  to 
pay  as  soon  as  you  get  home,  and  get  them  all  off 
your  mind." 

"  I  think  fifty  pounds  will  clear  me,"  said  Mar- 
jorie, clinging  to  her  long-established  total,  "  if  you'll 
let  me  have  that." 

"  Oh,  we  don't  do  things  like  that,"  said  Trafford. 
"  I'm  arranging  that  my  current  account  will  be  a 
sort  of  joint  account,  and  your  signature  will  be  as 
good  as  mine — for  the  purpose  of  drawing,  at  least. 
You'll  have  your  own  cheque-book " 

"  I  don't  understand,  quite,"  said  Marjorie. 

217 


218  MARRIAGE 

"  You'll  have  your  own  cheque-book  and1  write 
cheques  as  you  want  them.  That  seems  the  simplest 
way  to  me." 

"  Of  course,"  said  Marjorie.  "  But  isn't  this— 
rather  unusual?  Father  always  used  to  allowance 
mother." 

"  It's  the  only  decent  way  according  to  my  ideas," 
said  Trafford.  "  A  man  shouldn't  marry  when  he 
can't  trust." 

"  Of  course  not,"  said  Marjorie.  Something  be- 
tween fear  and  compunction  wrung  her.  "  Do  you 
think  you'd  better?"  she  asked,  very  earnestly. 

"  Better?" 

«  Do  this." 

"Why  not?" 

"  It's — it's  so  generous." 

He  didn't  answer.  He  took  up  an  oar  and  began 
to  push  out  from  among  the  reeds  with  something  of 
the  shy  awkwardness  of  a  boy  who  becomes  apprehen- 
sive of  thanks.  He  stole  a  glance  at  her  presently  and' 
caught  her  expression — there  was  something  very 
solemn  and  intent  in  her  eyes — and  he  thought  what  a 
grave,  fine  thing  his  Marjorie  could  be. 

But,  indeed,  her  state  of  mind  was  quite  excep- 
tionally confused.  She  was  disconcerted — and  hor- 
ribly afraid  of  herself. 

"Do  you  mean  that  I  can  spend  what  I  like?" 
asked  Marjorie. 

"  Just  as  I  may,"  he  said. 

"  I  wonder,"  said  Marjorie  again,  "  if  I'd  better." 

She  was  tingling  with  delight  at  this  freedom,  and 
she  knew  she  was  not  fit  for  its  responsibility.  She 
just  came  short  of  a  passionate  refusal  of  his  pro- 
posal. He  was  still  so  new  to  her,  and  things  were 
so  wonderful,  or  I  think  she  would  have  made  that 
refusal. 


SETTLING  DOWN  219 

"  You've  got  to,"  said  Trafford,  and  ended  the 
matter. 

So  Marjorie  was  silent  —  making  good  resolutions. 


Perhaps  some  day  it  may  be  possible  to  tell  in 
English  again,  in  the  language  of  Shakspeare  and 
Herrick,  of  the  passion,  the  tenderness,  the  beauty, 
and  the  delightful  familiarizations  of  a  happy  honey- 
moon ;  suffice  it  now,  in  this  delicate  period,  to  record 
only  how  our  two  young  lovers  found  one  day  that 
neither  had  a  name  for  the  other.  He  said  she  could 
be  nothing  better  than  Marjorie  to  him;  and  she, 
after  a  number  of  unsuccessful  experiments,  settled 
down  to  the  old  school-boy  nickname  made  out  of  his 
initials,  R.  A.  G. 

"  Dick,"  she  said,  "  is  too  bird-like  and  boy-like. 
Andrew  I  can't  abide.  Goodwin  gives  one  no  chances 
for  current  use.  Rag  you  must  be.  Mag  and  Rag  — 
poor  innocents!  Old  rag!" 

"  Mag,"  he  said,  "  has  its  drawbacks  !  The  street- 
boy  in  London  says,  '  Shut  your  mag.'  No,  I  think  I 
shall  stick  to  Marjorie.  .  .  ." 

All  honeymoons  must  end  at  last,  so  back  they 
came  to  London,  still  very  bright  and  happy.  And 
then,  Marjorie,  whose  eyes  had  changed  from  flashing 
stones  to  darkly  shining  pools  of  blue,  but  whose 
soul  had  still  perhaps  to  finds  its  depths,  set  herself 
to  the  business  of  decorating  and  furnishing  the  lit- 
tle house  Mrs.  Trafford  had  found  for  them  within 
ten  minutes  of  her  own.  Meanwhile  they  lived  in 
lodgings. 

There  can  be  no  denying  that  Marjorie  began  her 
furnishing  with  severely  virtuous  intentions.  She  was 
very  particular  to  ask  Trafford  several  times  what  he 


220  MARRIAGE 

thought  she  might  spend  upon  the  enterprise.  He  had 
already  a  bedroom  and  a  study  equipped,  and  he 
threw  out  three  hundred  pounds  as  his  conception  of 
an  acceptable  figure.  "  Very  well,"  said  Marjorie, 
with  a  note  of  great  precision,  "  now  I  shall  know," 
and  straightway  that  sum  took  a  place  in  her  imagina- 
tion that  was  at  once  definitive  and  protective,  just 
as  her  estimate  of  fifty  pounds  for  her  Oxbridge  debts 
had  always  been.  She  assured  herself  she  was  going 
to  do  things,  and  she  assured  herself  she  was  doing 
things,  on  three  hundred  pounds.  At  times  the  as- 
tonishment of  two  or  three  school  friends,  who  joined 
her  in  her  shopping,  stirred  her  to  a  momentary  sur- 
prise at  the  way  she  was  managing  to'  keep  things 
within  that  limit,  and  following  a  financial  method 
that  had,  after  all,  in  spite  of  some  momentary  and 
already  nearly  forgotten  distresses,  worked  very  well 
at  Oxbridge,  she  refrained  from  any  additions  until 
all  the  accounts  had  come  to  hand. 

It  was  an  immense  excitement  shopping  to  make  a 
home.  There  was  in  her  composition  a  strain  of  con- 
structive artistry  with  such  concrete  things,  a  strain 
that  had  hitherto  famished.  She  was  making  a  beau- 
tiful, secure  little  home  for  Trafford,  for  herself,  for 
possibilities — remote  perhaps,  but  already  touching 
her  imagination  with  the  anticipation  of  warm,  new, 
wonderful  delights.  There  should  be  simplicity  in- 
deed in  this  home,  but  no  bareness,  no  harshness, 
never  an  ugliness  nor  a  discord.  She  had  always 
loved  colour  in  the  skies,  in  the  landscapes,  in  the 
texture  of  stuffs  and  garments;  now  out  of  the  cha- 
otic skein  of  countless  shops  she  could  choose  and  pick 
and  mingle  her  threads  in  a  glow  of  feminine  self- 
expression. 

On  three  hundred  pounds,  that  is  to  say — as  a 
maximum. 


SETTLING  DOWN  221 

The  house  she  had  to  deal  with  was,  like  Mrs. 
Trafford's,  old  and  rather  small;  it  was  partly  to 
its  lack  of  bedroom  accommodation,  but  much  more 
to  the  invasion  of  the  street  by  the  back  premises  of 
Messrs.  Siddons  &  Thrale,  the  great  Chelsea  outfit- 
ters, that  the  lowness  of  the  rent  was  due,  a  lowness 
which  brought  it  within  the  means  of  Trafford.  Mar- 
jorie  knew  very  clearly  that  her  father  would  say  her 
husband  had  taken  her  to  live  in  a  noisy  slum,  and 
that  made  her  all  the  keener  to  ensure  that  every 
good  point  in  the  interior  told  to  its  utmost,  and  that 
whatever  was  to  be  accessible  to  her  family  should 
glow  with  a  refined  but  warm  prosperity.  The  room 
downstairs  was  shapely,  and  by  ripping  off  the  pa- 
pered canvas  of  the  previous  occupier,  some  very 
dilapidated  but  admirably  proportioned  panelling 
was  brought  to  light.  The  dining-room  and  study 
door  on  the  ground  floor,  by  a  happy  accident,  were 
of  mahogany,  with  really  very  beautiful  brass  fur- 
nishings ;  and  the  dining-room  window  upon  the  min- 
ute but  by  no  means  offensive  paved  garden  behind, 
was  curved  and  had  a  little  shallow  balcony  of  iron- 
work, half  covered  by  a  devitalized  but  leafy  grape- 
vine. Moreover,  the  previous  occupier  had  equipped 
the  place  with  electric  light  and  a  bath-room  of  almost 
American  splendour  on  the  landing,  glass-shelved, 
white-tiled,  and  white  painted,  so  that  it  was  a  delight 
to  go  into. 

Marjorie's  mind  leapt  very  rapidly  to  the  possi- 
bilities of  this  little  establishment.  The  panelling  must 
be  done  and  done  well,  anyhow ;  that  would  be  no  more 
than  a  wise  economy,  seeing  it  might  at  any  time  help 
them  to  re-let;  it  would  be  painted  white,  of  course, 
and  thus  set  the  key  for  a  clean  brightness  of  colour 
I  throughout.  The  furniture  would  stand  out  against 
the  softly  shining  white,  and  its  line  and  proportions 


222  MARRIAGE 

must  be  therefore  the  primary  qualities  to  consider  as 
she  bought  it.  The  study  was  much  narrower  than  the 
dining-room,  and  so  the  passage,  which  the  agent 
called  the  hall,  was  much  broader  and  more  com- 
modious behind  the  happily  wide  staircase  than  in 
front,  and  she  was  able  to  banish  out  of  the  sight  of 
the  chance  visitor  all  that  litter  of  hat-stand  and 
umbrella-stand,  letters,  boxes  arriving  and  parcels 
to  post,  which  had  always  offended  her  eye  at  home. 
At  home  there  had  been  often  the  most  unsightly 
things  visible,  one  of  Theo's  awful  caps,  or  his  school 
books,  and  not  infrequently  her  father's  well-worn 
and  all  too  fatally  comfortable  house  slippers.  A 
good  effect  at  first  is  half  the  victory  of  a  well  done 
house,  and  Marjorie  accomplished  another  of  her 
real  economies  here  by  carpeting  hall  and  staircase 
with  a  fine-toned,  rich-feeling  and  rather  high-priced 
blue  carpet,  held  down  by  very  thick  brass  stair-rods. 
She  hung  up  four  well-chosen  steel  engravings,  put  a 
single  Chippendale  chair  in  the  hall,  and  a  dark  old 
Dutch  clock  that  had  turned  out  to  be  only  five  pounds 
when  she  had  expected  the  shopman  to  say  eleven  or 
twelve,  on  the  half-landing.  That  was  all.  Round  the 
corner  by  the  study  door  was  a  mahogany  slab,  and 
the  litter  all  went  upon  a  capacious  but  very  simple 
dark-stained  hat-stand  and  table  that  were  out  of  the 
picture  entirely  until  you  reached  the  stairs. 

Her  dining-room  was  difficult  for  some  time.  She 
had  equipped  that  with  a  dark  oak  Welsh  dresser 
made  very  bright  with  a  dessert  service  that  was,  in 
view  of  its  extremely  decorative  quality,  remarkably 
cheap,  and  with  some  very  pretty  silver-topped  glass 
bottles  and  flasks.  This  dresser  and  a  number  of 
simple  but  shapely  facsimiles  of  old  chairs,  stood  out 
against  a  nearly  primrose  paper,  very  faintly  pat- 
terned, and  a  dark  blue  carpet  with  a  margin  of  dead 


SETTLING  DOWN  223 

black-stained  wood.  Over  the  mantel  was  a  German 
colour-print  of  waves  full  of  sunlight  breaking  under 
cliffs,  and  between  this  and  the  window  were  dark 
bookshelves  and  a  few  bright-coloured  books.  On  the 
wall,  black-framed,  were  four  very  good  Japanese 
prints,  rich  in  greenish-blues  and  blueish-greys  that 
answered  the  floor,  and  the  window  curtains  took  up 
some  of  the  colours  of  the  German  print.  But  some- 
thing was  needed  towards  the  window,  she  felt,  to 
balance  the  warmly  shining  plates  upon  the  dresser. 
The  deep  rose-red  of  the  cherries  that  adorned  them 
was  too  isolated,  usurped  too  dominating  a  value. 
And  while  this  was  weighing  upon  her  mind  she  saw 
in  a  window  in  Regent  Street  a  number  of  Bokhara 
hangings  very  nobly  displayed.  They  were  splendid 
pieces  of  needlework,  particularly  glorious  in  their 
crimsons  and  reds,  and  suddenly  it  came  to  her  that 
it  was  just  one  of  these,  one  that  had  great  ruby 
flowers  upon  it  with  dead-blue  interlacings,  that  was 
needed  to  weld  her  gay-coloured  scheme  together.  She 
hestitated,  went  half-way  to  Piccadilly  Circus,  turned 
back  and  asked  the  prices.  The  prices  were  towering 
prices,  ten,  fifteen,  eighteen  guineas,  and  when  at  last 
the  shopman  produced  one  with  all  the  charm  of 
colour  she  sought  at  eight,  it  seemed  like  ten  guineas 
snatched  back  as  they  dropped  from  her  hands.  And 
still  hesitating,  she  had  three  that  pleased  her  most 
sent  home,  "  on  approval,"  before  she  decided  finally 
to  purchase  one  of  them.  But  the  trial  was  con- 
clusive. And  then,  struck  with  a  sudden  idea,  she 
carried  off  a  long  narrow  one  she  had  had  no  idea  of 
buying  before  into  the  little  study  behind.  Suppose, 
she  thought,  instead  of  hanging  two  curtains  as  any- 
body else  would  do  in  that  window,  she  ran  this  glory 
of  rich  colour  across  from  one  side  on  a  great  rod  of 
brass. 


2241  ^MARRIAGE 

She  was  giving  the  study  the  very  best  of  her 
attention.  After  she  had  lapsed  in  some  other  part 
of  the  house  from  the  standards  of  rigid  economy  she 
had  set  up,  she  would  as  it  were  restore  the  balance  by 
adding  something  to  the  gracefully  dignified  arrange- 
ment of  this  den  he  was  to  use.  And  the  brass  rod 
of  the  Bokhara  hanging  that  was  to  do  instead  of 
curtains  released  her  mind  somehow  to  the  purchase  of 
certain  old  candlesticks  she  had  hitherto  resisted. 
They  were  to  stand,  bored  to  carry  candle  electric 
lights,  on  either  corner  of  the  low  bookcase  that  faced 
the  window.  They  were  very  heavy,  very  shapely 
candlesticks,  and  they  cost  thirty-five  shillings.  They 
looked  remarkably  well  when  they  were  put  up,  except 
that  a  sort  of  hollowness  appeared  between  them  and 
clamoured  for  a  delightful  old  brass-footed  workbox 
she  had  seen  in  a  shop  in  Baker  Street.  Enquiry 
confirmed  her  quick  impression  that  this  was  a  gen- 
uine piece  (of  quite  exceptional  genuineness)  and  that 
the  price — they  asked  five  pounds  ten  and  came  down 
to  five  guineas — was  in  accordance  with  this.  It  was 
a  little  difficult  (in  spite  of  the  silent  hunger  between 
the  candlesticks)  to  reconcile  this  particular  article 
with  her  dominating  idea  of  an  austerely  restrained1 
expenditure,  until  she  hit  upon  the  device  of  calling 
it  a  hors  d'ceuvre,  and  regarding  it  not  as  furniture 
but  as  a  present  from  herself  to  Trafford  that  hap- 
pened to  fall  in  very  agreeably  with  the  process  of 
house  furnishing.  She  decided  she  would  some  day 
economise  its  cost  out  of  her  dress  allowance.  The 
bookcase  on  which  it  stood  was  a  happy  discovery 
in  Kensington,  just  five  feet  high,  and  with  beautiful 
oval  glass  fronts,  and  its  capacity  was  supplemented 
and  any  excess  in  its  price  at  least  morally  compen- 
sated by  a  very  tall,  narrow,  distinguished-looking 
set  of  open  shelves  that  had  been  made  for  some 


SETTLING  DOWN  225 

special  corner  in  another  house,  and  which  anyhow 
were  really  and  truly  dirt  cheap.  The  desk  combined 
grace  and  good  proportions  to  an  admirable  extent, 
the  fender  of  pierced  brass  looked  as  if  it  had  always 
lived  in  immediate  contact  with  the  shapely  old  white 
marble  fireplace,  and  the  two  arm-chairs  were  mar- 
vels of  dignified  comfort.  By  the  fireplace  were  a 
banner-shaped  needlework  firescreen,  a  white  sheep- 
skin hearthrug,  a  little  patch  and  powder  table 
adapted  to  carry  books,  and  a  green-shaded  lamp, 
grouped  in  a  common  inaudible  demand  for  a  reader 
in  slippers.  Trafford,  when  at  last  the  apartment 
was  ready  for  his  inspection,  surveyed  these  arrange- 
ments with  a  kind  of  dazzled  admiration. 

"  By  Jove  !"  he  said.  "  How  little  people  know 
of  the  homes  of  the  Poor  !" 

Marjorie  was  so  delighted  with  his  approval  that 
she  determined  to  show  Mrs.  Trafford  next  day  how 
prettily  at  least  her  son  was  going  to  live.  The  good 
lady  came  and  admired  everything,  and  particularly 
the  Bokhara  hangings.  She  did  not  seem  to  appraise, 
but  something  set  Marjorie  talking  rather  nervously 
of  a  bargain-hunter's  good  fortune.  Mrs.  Trafford 
glanced  at  the  candlesticks  and  the  low  bookcase,  and 
returned  to  the  glowing  piece  of  needlework  that 
formed  the  symmetrical  window  curtain  in  the  study. 
She  took  it  in  her  hand,  and  whispered,  "  beautiful  !" 

"  But  aren't  these  rather  good?"  asked  Mrs. 
Trafford. 

Marjorie  answered,  after  a  little  pause.  "  They're 
not  too  good  for  him,"  she  said. 


And  now  these  young  people  had  to  resume  life  in 
London  in  earnest.     The  orchestral  accompaniment 


226  MARRIAGE 

of  the  world  at  large  began  to  mingle  with  their  hith- 
erto unsustained  duet.  It  had  been  inaudible  in  Italy. 
In  Chelsea  it  had  sounded,  faintly  perhaps  but  dis- 
tinctly, from  their  very  first  inspection  of  the  little 
house.  A  drawing-room  speaks  of  callers,  a  dining- 
room  of  lunch-parties  and  dinners.  It  had  swayed 
Marjorie  from  the  front  door  inward. 

During  their  honeymoon  they  had  been  gloriously 
unconscious  of  comment.  Now  Marjorie  began  to 
show  herself  keenly  sensitive  to  the  advent  of  a  score 
of  personalities,  and  very  anxious  to  show  just  how 
completely  successful  in  every  sense  her  romantic  dis- 
obedience had  been.  She  knew  she  had  been  approved 
of,  admired,  condemned,  sneered  at,  thoroughly  dis- 
cussed. She  felt  it  her  first  duty  to  Trafford,  to  all 
who  had  approved  of  her  flight,  to  every  one,  herself 
included,  to  make  this  marriage  obviously,  indisput- 
ably, a  success,  a  success  not  only  by  her  own  stand- 
ards but  by  the  standards  of  anyonesoever  who  chose 
to  sit  in  judgment  on  her. 

There  was  Trafford.  She  felt  she  had  to  extort 
the  admission  from  every  one  that  he  was  the  hand- 
somest, finest,  ablest,  most  promising  and  most 
delightful  man  a  prominent  humorist  was  ever  jilted 
for.  She  wanted  them  to  understand  clearly  just  all 
that  Trafford  was — and  that  involved,  she  speedily 
found  in  practice,  making  them  believe  a  very  great 
deal  that  as  yet  Trafford  wasn't.  She  found  it  prac- 
tically impossible  not  to  anticipate  his  election  to  the 
Royal  Society  and  the  probability  of  a  more  import- 
ant professorship.  She  felt  that  anyhow  he  was  an 
F.R.S.  in  the  sight  of  God.  .  .  . 

It  was  almost  equally  difficult  not  to  indicate  a 
larger  income  than  facts  justified. 

It  was  entirely  in  Marjorie's  vein  in  those  early 
days  that  she  would  want  to  win  on  every  score  and 


SETTLING  DOWN  227 

by  every  standard  of  reckoning.  If  Marjorie  had 
been  a  general  she  would  have  counted  no  victory 
complete  if  the  struggle  was  not  sustained  and  des- 
perate, and  if  it  left  the  enemy  with  a  single  gun  or 
flag,  or  herself  with  so  much  as  a  man  killed  or 
wounded.  The  people  she  wanted  to  impress  varied 
very  widely.  She  wanted  to  impress  the  Carmel  girls, 
and  the  Carmel  girls,  she  knew,  with  their  racial 
trick  of  acute  appraisement,  were  only  to  be  won  by 
the  very  highest  quality  all  round.  They  had,  she 
knew,  two  standards  of  quality,  cost  and  distinction. 
As  far  as  possible,  she  would  give  them  distinction. 
But  whenever  she  hesitated  over  something  on  the 
verge  of  cheapness  the  thought  of  those  impending 
judgments  tipped  the  balance.  The  Carmel  girls 
were  just  two  influential  representatives  of  a  host. 
She  wanted  to  impress  quite  a  number  of  other  school 
and  college  friends.  There  were  various  shy,  plastic- 
spirited,  emotional  creatures,  of  course,  for  the  most 
part  with  no  confidence  in  their  own  appearance, 
who  would  be  impressed  quite  adequately  enough  by 
Trafford's  good  looks  and  witty  manner  and  easy 
temper.  They  might  perhaps  fall  in  love  with  him 
and  become  slavish  to  her  after  the  way  of  their 
kind,  and  anyhow  they  would  be  provided  for,  but 
there  were  plenty  of  others  of  a  harder  texture  whose 
tests  would  be  more  difficult  to  satisfy.  There  were 
girls  who  were  the  daughters  of  prominent  men,  who 
must  be  made  to  understand  that  Trafford  was  prom- 
inent, girls  who  were  well  connected,  who  must  be 
made  to  realize  the  subtle  excellence  of  Trafford's 
blood.  As  she  thought  of  Constance  Graham,  for 
example,  or  Ottiline  Winchelsea,  she  felt  the  strong- 
est disposition  to  thicken  the  by  no  means  well 
authenticated  strands  that  linked  Trafford  with  the 
Traffords  of  Trafford-over-Lea.  She  went  about  the 


228  MARRIAGE 

house  dreaming  a  little  apprehensively  of  these  com- 
ing calls,  and  the  pitiless  light  of  criticism  they  would 
bring  to  bear,  not  indeed  upon  her  happiness — that 
was  assured — but  upon  her  success. 

The  social  side  of  the  position  would  have  to  be 
strained  to  the  utmost,  Marjorie  felt,  with  Aunt 
Plessington.  The  thought  of  Aunt  Plessington  made 
her  peculiarly  apprehensive.  Aunt  Plessington  had 
to  the  fullest  extent  that  contempt  for  merely  artistic 
or  scientific  people  which  sits  so  gracefully  upon  the 
administrative  English.  You  see  people  of  that  sort 
do  not  get  on  in  the  sense  that  a  young  lawyer  or 
barrister  gets  on.  They  do  not  make  steps;  they 
boast  and  quarrel  and  are  jealous  perhaps,  but  that 
steady  patient  shove  upward  seems  beyond  their  in- 
telligence. The  energies  God  manifestly  gave  them 
for  shoving,  they  dissipate  in  the  creation  of  weak 
beautiful  things  and  unremunerative  theories,  or  in 
the  establishment  of  views  sometimes  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  ideas  of  influential  people.  And  they 
are  "  queer " — socially.  They  just  moon  about 
doing  this  so-called  "  work "  of  theirs,  and  even 
when  the  judgment  of  eccentric  people  forces  a  kind 
of  reputation  upon  them — Heaven  knows  why? — 
they  make  no  public  or  social  use  of  it.  It  seemed  to 
Aunt  Plessington  that  the  artist  and  the  scientific 
man  were  dealt  with  very  neatly  and  justly  in  the 
Parable  of  the  Buried  Talent.  Moreover  their 
private  lives  were  often  scandalous,  they  married  for 
love  instead  of  interest,  often  quite  disadvantage- 
ously,  and  their  relationships  had  all  the  instability 
that  is  natural  upon  such  a  foundation.  And,  after 
all,  what  good  were  they?  She  had  never  met  an 
artist  or  a  prominent  imaginative  writer  or  scientific 
man  that  she  had  not  been  able  to  subdue  in  a  minute 


SETTLING  DOWN  229 

or  so  by  flat  contradiction,  and'  if  necessary  slightly 
raising  her  voice.  They  had  little  or  no  influence 
even  upon  their  own  public  appointments.  .  .  . 

The  thought  of  the  invasion  of  her  agreeable  little 
back  street  establishment  by  this  Britannic  system  of 
judgments  filled  Marjorie's  heart  with  secret  terrors. 
She  felt  she  had  to  grapple  with  and  overcome  Aunt 
Plessington,  or  be  for  ever  fallen — at  least,  so  far  as 
that  amiable  lady's  report  went,  and  she  knew  it  went 
pretty  far.  She  wandered  about  the  house  trying  to 
imagine  herself  Aunt  Plessington. 

Immediately  she  felt  the  gravest  doubts  whether 
the  whole  thing  wasn't  too  graceful  and  pretty.  A 
rich  and  rather  massive  ugliness,  of  course,  would 
have  been  the  thing  to  fetch  Aunt  Plessington.  Hap- 
pily, it  was  Aunt  Plessington's  habit  to  veil  her  eyes 
with  her  voice.  She  might  not  see  very  much. 

The  subjugation  of  Aunt  Plessington  was  difficult, 
but  not  altogether  hopeless,  Marjorie  felt,  provided 
her  rejection  of  Magnet  had  not  been  taken  as  an  act 
of  personal  ingratitude.  There  was  a  case  on  her 
side.  She  was  discovering,  for  example,  that  Traf- 
f ord  had  a  really  very  considerable  range  of  acquaint- 
ance among  quite  distinguished  people;  big  figures 
like  Evesham  and  MacHaldo,  for  example,  were  in- 
telligently interested  in  the  trend  of  his  work.  She 
felt  this  gave  her  a  basis  for  Plessingtonian  justifica- 
tions. She  could  produce  those  people — as  one  shows 
one's  loot.  She  could  imply,  "  Oh,  Love  and  all  that 
nonsense !  Certainly  not!  This  is  what  I  did  it  for." 
With  skill  and  care  and  good  luck,  and  a  word  here 
and  there  in  edgeways,  she  believed  she  might  be  able 
to  represent  the  whole  adventure  as  the  well-calcu- 
lated opening  of  a  campaign  on  soundly  Plessing- 
tonian lines.  Her  marriage  to  Trafford,  she  tried  to 
persuade  herself,  might  be  presented  as  something 


230  MARRIAGE 

almost  as  brilliant  and  startling  as  her  aunt's  swoop 
upon  her  undistinguished  uncle. 

She  might  pretend  that  all  along  she  had  seen  her 
way  to  things,  to  coveted  dinner-tables  and  the  famil- 
iarity of  coveted  guests,  to  bringing  people  together 
and  contriving  arrangements,  to  influence  and  promi- 
nence, to  culminations  and  intriques  impossible  in 
the  comparatively  specialized  world  of  a  successful 
humorist  and  playwright,  and  so  at  last  to  those 
high  freedoms  of  authoritative  and  if  necessary  of- 
fensive utterance  in  a  strangulated  contralto,  and 
from  a  position  of  secure  eminence,  which  is  the  goal 
of  all  virtuously  ambitious  Englishwomen  of  the  gov- 
erning classes — that  is  to  say,  of  all  virtuously  am- 
bitious Englishwomen.  .  .  . 


And  while  such  turbid  solicitudes  as  these  were 
flowing  in  again  from  the  London  world  to  which  she 
had  returned,  and  fouling  the  bright,  romantic  clear- 
ness of  Marjorie's  life,  Trafford,  in  his  ampler,  less 
detailed  way  was  also  troubled  about  their  coming 
re-entry  into  society.  He,  too,  had  his  old  associa- 
tions. 

For  example,  he  was  by  no  means  confident  of  the 
favourable  judgments  of  his  mother  upon  Marjorie's 
circle  of  school  and  college  friends,  whom  he  gathered 
from  Marjorie's  talk  were  destined  to  play  a  large 
part  in  this  new  phase  of  his  life.  She  had  given  him 
very  ample  particulars  of  some  of  them ;  and  he  found 
them  interesting  rather  than  richly  attractive  per- 
sonalities. It  is  to  be  noted  that  while  he  thought 
always  of  Marjorie  as  a  beautiful,  grown-up  woman, 
and  his  mate  and  equal,  he  was  still  disposed  to  regard 
her  intimate  friends  as  schoolgirls  of  an  advanced  and 
aggressive  type.  .  .  . 


SETTLING  DOWN  231 

Then  that  large  circle  of  distinguished  acquaint- 
ances which  Marjorie  saw  so  easily  and  amply  utiliz- 
ed for  the  subjugation  of  Aunt  Plessington  didn't 
present  itself  quite  in  that  service  to  Trafford's  pri- 
vate thoughts.  He  hadn't  that  certitude  of  command 
over  them,  nor  that  confidence  in  their  unhesitating 
approval  of  all  he  said  and  did.  Just  as  Marjorie 
wished  him  to  shine  in  the  heavens  over  all  her  people, 
so,  in  regard  to  his  associates,  he  was  extraordinarily 
anxious  that  they  should  realize,  and  realize  from  the 
outset  without  qualification  or  hesitation,  how  beau- 
tiful, brave  and  delightful  she  was.  And  you  know 
he  had  already  begun  to  be  aware  of  an  evasive  feel- 
ing in  his  mind  that  at  times  she  did  not  altogether 
do  herself  justice — he  scarcely  knew  as  yet  how  or 
why.  .  .  . 

She  was  very  young.    .    .    . 

One  or  two  individuals  stood  out  in  his  imagina- 
tion, representatives  and  symbols  of  the  rest.  Par- 
ticularly there  was  that  old  giant,  Sir  Roderick 
Dover,  who  had  been,  until  recently,  the  Professor  of 
Physics  in  the  great  Oxford  laboratories.  Dover 
and  Trafford  had  one  of  those  warm  friendships 
which  spring  up  at  times  between  a  rich-minded  man 
whose  greatness  is  assured  and  a  young  man  of  bril- 
liant promise.  It  was  all  the  more  affectionate 
because  Dover  had  been  a  friend  of  Trafford's  father. 
These  two  and  a  group  of  other  careless-minded,  able, 
distinguished,  and  uninfluential  men  at  the  Winton 
Club  affected  the  end  of  the  smoking-room  near  the 
conservatory  in  the  hours  after  lunch,  and  shared  the 
joys  of  good  talk  and  fine  jesting  about  the  big  fire- 
place there.  Under  Dover's  broad  influence  they 
talked  more  ideas  and  less  gossip  than  is  usual  with 
English  club  men.  Twaddle  about  appointments, 
about  reputations,  topics  from  the  morning's  papers, 


232  MARRIAGE 

London  architecture,  and  the  commerce  in  "  good 
stories  "  took  refuge  at  the  other  end  in  the  window 
bays  or  by  the  further  fireplace.  Trafford  only  began 
to  realize  on  his  return  to  London  how  large  a  share 
this  intermittent  perennial  conversation  had  contrib- 
uted to  the  atmosphere  of  his  existence.  Amidst  the 
romantic  circumstances  of  his  flight  with  Marjorie  he 
had  forgotten  the  part  these  men  played  in  his  life 
and  thoughts.  Now  he  was  enormously  exercised  in 
the  search  for  a  reconciliation  between  these,  he  felt, 
incommensurable  factors. 

He  was  afraid  of  what  might  be  Sir  Roderick's 
unspoken  judgment  on  Marjorie  and  the  house  she 
had  made — though  what  was  there  to  be  afraid  of? 
He  was  still  more  afraid — and  this  was  even  more 
remarkable — of  the  clear  little  judgments — hard  as 
loose,  small  diamonds  in  a  bed — that  he  thought  Mar- 
jorie might  pronounce  on  Sir  Roderick.  He  had 
never  disguised  from  himself  that  Sir  Roderick  was 
fat — nobody  who  came  within  a  hundred  yards  of 
him  could  be  under  any  illusion  about  that — and  that 
he  drank  a  good  deal,  ate  with  a  cosmic  spaciousness, 
loved  a  cigar,  and  talked  and  laughed  with  a  freedom 
that  sometimes  drove  delicate-minded  new  members 
into  the  corners  remotest  from  the  historical  fire- 
place. Trafford  knew  himself  quite  definitely  that 
there  was  a  joy  in  Dover's  laugh  and  voice,  a  beauty 
in  his  face  (that  was  somehow  mixed  up  with  his 
healthy  corpulence),  and  a  breadth,  a  charity,  a 
leonine  courage  in  his  mind  (that  was  somehow  mixed 
up  with  his  careless  freedom  of  speech)  that  made 
him  an  altogether  satisfactory  person. 

But  supposing  Marjorie  didn't  see  any  of  that! 

Still,  he  was  on  the  verge  of  bringing  Sir  Roder- 
ick home  when  a  talk  at  the  club  one  day  postponed 
that  introduction  of  the  two  extremes  of  Trafford's 
existence  for  quite  a  considerable  time. 


SETTLING  DOWN  233 

Those  were  the  days  of  the  first  enthusiasms  of 
the  militant  suffrage  movement,  and  the  occasional 
smashing  of  a  Downing  Street  window  or  an  assault 
upon  a  minister  kept  the  question  of  woman's  dis- 
tinctive intelligence  and  character  persistently  before 
the  public.  Godley  Buzard,  the  feminist  novelist, 
had  been  the  guest  of  some  member  to  lunch,  and  the 
occasion  was  too  provocative  for  any  one  about 
Dover's  fireplace  to  avoid  the  topic.  Buzard's  pres- 
ence, perhaps,  drove  Dover  into  an  extreme  position 
on  the  other  side;  he  forgot  Trafford's  new- wedded 
condition,  and  handled  this  great  argument,  an  ar- 
gument which  has  scarcely  progressed  since  its  be- 
ginning in  the  days  of  Plato  and  Aristophanes,  with 
the  freedoms  of  an  ancient  Greek  and  the  explicitness 
oi  a  modern  scientific  man. 

He  opened  almost  apropos  of  nothing.  "  Women," 
he  said,  "  are  inferior — and  you  can't  get  away  from 
it." 

"  You  can  deny  it,"  said  Buzard. 

"In  the  face  of  the  facts,"  said  Sir  Roderick. 
166  To  begin  with,  they're  several  inches  shorter,  sev- 
eral pounds  lighter ;  they've  less  physical  strength  in 
footpounds." 

"  More  endurance,"  said  Buzard. 

"  Less  sensitiveness  merely.  All  those  are  de- 
monstrable things — amenable  to  figures  and  appara- 
tus. Then  they  stand  nervous  tensions  worse,  the 
breaking-point  comes  sooner.  They  have  weaker  in- 
hibitions, and  inhibition  is  the  test  of  a  creature's 
position  in  the  mental  scale." 

He  maintained  that  in  the  face  of  Buzard's  ani- 
mated protest.  Buzard  glanced  at  their  moral 
qualities.  "  More  moral !"  cried  Dover,  "  more  self- 
restraint!  Not  a  bit  of  it!  Their  desires  and  pas- 
sions are  weaker  even  than  their  controls ;  that's  all. 


234  MARRIAGE 

Weaken  restraints  and  they  show  their  quality.  A 
drunken  woman  is  far  worse  than  a  drunken  man. 
And  as  for  their  biological  significance " 

"  They  are  the  species,"  said  Buzard,  "  and  we 
are  the  accidents." 

"  They  are  the  stolon  and  we  are  the  individual- 
ized branches.  They  are  the  stem  and  we  are  the 
fruits.  Surely  it's  better  to  exist  than  just  transmit 
existence.  And  that's  a  woman's  business,  though 
we've  fooled  and  petted  most  of  'em  into  forgetting 
it.  .  .  ." 

He  proceeded  to  an  attack  on  the  intellectual 
quality  of  women.  He  scoffed  at  the  woman  artist,  at 
feminine  research,  at  what  he  called  the  joke  of  femi- 
nine philosophy.  Buzard  broke  in  with  some  sen- 
tences of  reply.  He  alleged  the  lack  of  feminine 
opportunity,  inferior  education. 

"  You  don't  or  won't  understand  me,"  said  Dover. 
"  It  isn't  a  matter  of  education  or  opportunity,  or 
simply  that  they're  of  inferior  capacity ;  it  lies  deeper 
than  that.  They  don't  want  to  do  these  things. 
They're  different." 

"  Precisely,"  ejaculated  Buzard,  as  if  he  claimed 
a  score. 

"  They  don't  care  for  these  things.  They  don't 
care  for  art  or  philosophy,  or  literature  or  anything 
except  the  things  that  touch  them  directly.  That's 
their  peculiar  difference.  Hunger  they  understand, 
and  comfort,  and  personal  vanity  and  desire,  furs 
and  chocolate  and  husbands,  and  the  extreme  import- 
ance conferred  upon  them  by  having  babies  at  in- 
frequent intervals.  But  philosophy  or  beauty  for  its 
own  sake,  or  dreams  !  Lord !  no !  The  Mahometans 
know  they  haven't  souls,  and  they  say  it.  We  know, 
and  keep  it  up  that  they  have.  Haven't  all  we 
scientific  men  had  'em  in  our  laboratories  working; 


SETTLING  DOWN  235 

don't  we  know  the  papers  they  turn  out  ?  Every  sane 
man  of  five  and  forty  knows  something  of  the  dis- 
illusionment of  the  feminine  dream,  but  we  who've  had 
the  beautiful  creatures  under  us,  weighing  rather 
badly,  handling  rather  weakly,  invariably  missing 
every  fine  detail  and  all  the  implications  of  our  re- 
searches, never  flashing,  never  leaping,  never  being 
even  thoroughly  bad, — we're  specialists  in  the  sub- 
ject. At  the  present  time  there  are  far  more  edu- 
cated young  women  than  educated  young  men  avail- 
able for  research  work — and  who  wants  them?  Oh, 
the  young  professors  who've  still  got  ideals  perhaps. 
And  in  they  come,  and  if  they're  dull,  they  just 
voluminously  do  nothing,  and  if  they're  bright,  they 
either  marry  your  demonstrator  or  get  him  into  a 
mess.  And  the  work —  —  ?  It's  nothing  to  them.  No 
woman  ever  painted  for  the  love  of  painting,  or  sang 
for  the  sounds  she  made,  or  philosophized  for  the 
sake  of  wisdom  as  men  do " 

Buzard  intervened  with  instances.  Dover  would 
have  none  of  them.  He  displayed  astonishing  and 
distinctive  knowledge.  "  Madame  Curie,"  clamoured 
Buzard,  "  Madame  Curie." 

"  There  was  Curie,"  said  Dover.  "  No  woman 
alone  has  done  such  things.  I  don't  say  women  aren't 
clever,"  he  insisted.  "  They're  too  clever.  Give  them 
a  man's  track  or  a  man's  intention  marked  and  de- 
fined, they'll  ape  him  to  the  life — 

Buzard  renewed  his  protests,  talking  at  the  same 
time  as  Dover,  and  was  understood  to  say  that  women 
had  to  care  for  something  greater  than  art  or  phil- 
osophy. They  were  custodians  of  life,  the  future 
of  the  race — 

"  And  that's  my  crowning  disappointment,"  cried 
Dover.  "  If  there  was  one  thing  in  which  you  might 
think  women  would  show  a  sense  of  some  divine  pur- 


236  MARRIAGE 

pose  in  life,  it  is  in  the  matter  of  children — and  they 
show  about  as  much  care  in  that  matter,  oh ! — as  rab- 
bits. Yes,  rabbits !  I  stick  to  it.  Look  at  the  things 
a  nice  girl  will  marry;  look  at  the  men's  children 
she'll  consent  to  bring  into  the  world.  Cheerfully! 
Proudly !  For  the  sake  of  the  home  and  the  clothes. 
Nasty  little  beasts  they'll  breed  without  turning  a 
hair.  All  about  us  we  see  girls  and  women  marrying 
ugly  men,  dull  and  stupid  men,  ill-tempered  dyspep- 
tic wrecks,  sickly  young  fools,  human  rats — rats!" 

"  No,  no !"  cried  Trafford  to  Dover. 

Buzard's  voice  clamoured  that  all  would  be  differ- 
ent when  women  had  the  vote. 

"  If  ever  we  get  a  decent  care  for  Eugenics,  it  will 
come  from  men,"  said  a  white-faced  little  man  on  the 
sofa  beside  Trafford,  in  the  confidential  tone  of  one 
who  tells  a  secret. 

"  Doing  it  cheerfully !"  insisted  Dover. 

Trafford  in  mid-protest  was  suddenly  stricken 
into  silence  by  a  memory.  It  was  as  if  the  past  had 
thrown  a  stone  at  the  back  of  his  head  and  hit  it 
smartly.  He  nipped  his  sentence  in  the  bud.  He  left 
the  case  for  women  to  Buzard.  .  .  . 

He  revived  that  memory  again  on  his  way  home. 
It  had  been  in  his  mind  overlaid  by  a  multitude  of 
newer,  fresher  things,  but  now  he  took  it  out  and 
looked  at  it.  It  was  queer,  it  was  really  very  queer, 
to  think  that  once  upon  a  time,  not  so  very  long  ago, 
Marjorie  had  been  prepared  to  marry  Magnet.  Of 
course  she  had  hated  it,  but  still .  .  . 

There  is  much  to  be  discovered  about  life,  even  by 
a  brilliant  and  rising  young  Professor  of  Physics.  .  .  . 

Presently  Dover,  fingering  the  little  glass  of  yel- 
low chartreuse  he  had  hitherto  forgotten  in  the  heat 
of  controversy,  took  a  more  personal  turn. 


SETTLING  DOWN  237 

"  Don't  we  know,"  he  said,  and  made  the  limpid 
amber  vanish  in  his  pause.  "  Don't  we  know  we've 
got  to  manage  and  control  'em — just  as  we've  got  to 
keep  'em  and  stand  the  racket  of  their  misbehaviour? 
Don't  our  instincts  tell  us?  Doesn't  something  tell 
us  all  that  if  we  let  a  woman  loose  with  our  honour 
and  trust,  some  other  man  will  get  hold  of  her  ? 
We've  tried  it  long  enough  now,  this  theory  that  a 
woman's  a  partner  and  an  equal ;  we've  tried  it  long 
enough  to  see  some  of  the  results,  and  does  it  work? 
Does  it?  A  woman's  a  prize,  a  possession,  a  respon- 
sibility, something  to  take  care  of  and  be  careful 
about.  .  .  .  You  chaps,  if  you'll  forgive  me,  you 
advanced  chaps,  seem  to  want  to  have  the  women  take 
care  of  you.  You  seem  always  to  want  to  force 
decisions  on  them,  make  them  answerable  for  things 
that  you  ought  to  decide  and  answer  for.  ...  If 
one  could,  if  one  could !  If !  .  .  .  But  they're  not 
helps — that's  a  dream — they're  distractions,  grati- 
fications, anxieties,  dangers,  undertakings.  .  .  ." 

Buzard  got  in  his  one  effective  blow  at  this  point. 
"  That's  why  you've  never  married,  Sir  Roderick?" 
he  threw  out. 

The  big  man  was  checked  for  a  moment.  Trafford 
wondered  what  memory  lit  that  instant's  pause. 
"  I've  had  my  science,"  said  Dover. 

§« 

Mrs.  Pope  was  of  course  among  the  first  to  visit 
the  new  home  so  soon  as  it  was  open  to  inspection. 
She  arrived,  looking  very  bright  and  neat  in  a  new 
bonnet  and  some  new  black  furs  that  suited  her,  bear- 
ing up  bravely  but  obviously  in  a  state  of  dispersed 
and  miscellaneous  emotion. 


238  MARRIAGE 

In  many  ways  Marj  one's  marriage  had  been  a 
great  relief  to  her  mother.  Particularly  it  had  been 
a  financial  relief.  Marjorie  had  been  the  most  ex- 
pensive child  of  her  family,  and  her  cessation  had  led 
to  increments  both  of  Mrs.  Pope's  and  Daphne's  al-1 
too  restricted  allowances.  Mrs.  Pope  had  been  able 
therefore  to  relapse  from  the  orthodox  Anglicanism 
into  which  poverty  had  driven  her,  and  indulge  for 
an  hour  weekly  in  the  consolations  of  Higher 
Thought.  These  exercises  in  emancipated  religiosity 
occurred  at  the  house  of  Mr.  Silas  Root,  and  were 
greatly  valued  by  a  large  circle  of  clients.  Essen- 
tially they  were  orgies  of  vacuity,  and  they  cost  six 
guineas  for  seven  hours.  They  did  her  no  end  of 
good.  All  through  the  precious  weekly  hour  she  sat 
with  him  in  a  silent  twilight,  very,  very  still  and 
feeling — oh !  "  higher  "  than  anything,  and  when  she 
came  out  she  wore  an  inane  smile  on  her  face  and  was 
prepared  not  to  worry,  to  lie  with  facility,  and  to 
take  the  easiest  way  in  every  eventuality  in  an  en- 
tirely satisfactory  and  exalted  manner.  Moreover 
he  was  "  treating  "  her  investments.  Acting  upon 
his  advice,  and  doing  the  whole  thing  quietly  with  the 
idea  of  preparing  a  pleasant  surprise  for  her  hus- 
band, she  had  sold  out  of  certain  Home  Railway 
debentures  and  invested  in  a  company  for  working  the 
auriferous  waste  which  is  so  abundant  in  the  drainage 
of  Philadelphia,  a  company  whose  shareholders  were 
chiefly  higher  thought  disciples  and  whose  profits 
therefore  would  inevitably  be  greatly  enhanced  by 
their  concerted  mental  action.  It  was  to  the  pros- 
pective profits  in  this  that  she  owed  the  new  black 
furs  she  was  wearing. 

The  furs  and  the  bonnet  and  the  previous  day's 
treatment  she  had  had,  all  helped  to  brace  her  up  on 
Marjorie's  doorstep  for  a  complex  and  difficult  situ- 


SETTLING  DOWN  239 

ation,  and  to  carry  her  through  the  first  tensions  of 
her  call.  She  was  so  much  to  pieces  as  it  was  that 
she  could  not  help  feeling  how  much  more  to  pieces 
she  might  have  been — but  for  the  grace  of  Silas  Root. 
She  knew  she  ought  to  have  very  strong  feelings 
about  Trafford,  though  it  was  not  really  clear  to  her 
what  feelings  she  ought  to  have.  On  the  whole  she 
was  inclined  to  believe  she  was  experiencing  moral 
disapproval  mixed  up  with  a  pathetic  and  rather 
hopeless  appeal  for  the  welfare  of  the  tender  life  that 
had  entrusted  itself  so  recklessly  to  these  brutal  and 
discreditable  hands,  though  indeed  if  she  had  really 
dared  to  look  inside  her  mind  her  chief  discovery 
would  have  been  a  keenly  jealous  appreciation  of 
Trafford's  good  looks  and  generous  temper,  and  a 
feeling  of  injustice  as  between  her  own  lot  and  Mar- 
jorie's.  However,  going  on  her  assumed  basis  she 
managed  to  be  very  pale,  concise  and  tight-lipped  at 
any  mention  of  her  son-in-law,  and  to  put  a  fervour 
of  helpless  devotion  into  her  embraces  of  her  daugh- 
ter. She  surveyed  the  house  with  a  pained  constrain- 
ed expression,  as  though  she  tried  in  vain  to  conceal 
from  herself  that  it  was  all  slightly  improper,  and 
even  such  objects  as  the  Bokhara  hangings  failed  to 
extort  more  than  an  insincere,  "  Oh,  very  nice,  dear 
— very  nice." 

In  the  bedroom,  she  spoke  about  Mr.  Pope.  "  He 
was  dreadfully  upset,"  she  said.  "  His  first  thought 
was  to  come  after  you  both  with  a  pistol.  If —  if  he 
hadn't  married  you 

"  But  dear  Mummy,  of  course  we  meant  to  marry ! 
We  married  right  away." 

"  Yes,  dear,  of  course.     But  if  he  hadn't " 

She  paused,  and  Marjorie,  with  a  momentary 
flush  of  indignation  in  her  cheeks,  did  not  urge  her  to 
conclude  her  explanation. 


240  MARRIAGE 

"  He's  wounded,"  said  Mrs.  Pope.  "  Some  day 
perhaps  he'll  come  round — you  were  always  his  fa- 
vourite daughter." 

"  I  know,"  said  Marjorie  concisely,  with  a  faint 
flavour  of  cynicism  in  her  voice. 

"  I'm  afraid  dear,  at  present — he  will  do  nothing 
for  you." 

"  I  don't  think  Rag  would  like  him  to,"  said  Mar- 
jorie with  an  unreal  serenity;  "  ever" 

"  For  a  time  I'm  afraid  he'll  refuse  to  see  you. 
He  just  wants  to  forget .  Everything." 

"  Poor  old  Dad !  I  wish  he  wouldn't  put  himself 
out  like  this.  Still,  I  won't  bother  him,  Mummy,  if 
you  mean  that." 

Then  suddenly  into  Mrs.  Pope's  unsystematic, 
unstable  mind,  started  perhaps  by  the  ring  in  her 
daughter's  voice,  there  came  a  wave  of  affectionate 
feeling.  That  she  had  somehow  to  be  hostile  and 
unsympathetic  to  Marjorie,  that  she  had  to  pretend 
that  Trafford  was  wicked  and  disgusting,  and  not  be 
happy  in  the  jolly  hope  and  happiness  of  this  bright 
little  house,  cut  her  with  a  keen  swift  pain.  She  didn't 
know  clearly  why  she  was  taking  this  coldly  hostile 
attitude,  or  why  she  went  on  doing  so,  but  the  sense 
of  that  necessity  hurt  her  none  the  less.  She  put  out 
her  hands  upon  her  daughter's  shoulders  and  whim- 
pered :  "  Oh  my  dear !  I  do  wish  things  weren't  so 
difficult — so  very  difficult." 

The  whimper  changed  by  some  inner  force  of  its 
own  to  honest  sobs  and  tears. 

Marjorie  passed  through  a  flash  of  amazement 
to  a  sudden  understanding  of  her  mother's  case. 
"  Poor  dear  Mummy,"  she  said.  "  Oh !  poor  dear 
Mummy.  It's  a  shame  of  us !" 

She  put  her  arms  about  her  mother  and  held  her 
for  awhile. 


SETTLING  DOWN  241 

"  It  is  a  shame,"  said  her  mother  in  a  muffled 
voice,  trying  to  keep  hold  of  this  elusive  thing  that 
had  somehow  both  wounded  her  and  won  her  daugh- 
ter back.  But  her  poor  grasp  slipped  again.  "  I 
knew  you'd  come  to  see  it,"  she  said,  dabbing  with  her 
handkerchief  at  her  eyes.  "  I  knew  you  would."  And 
then  with  the  habitual  loyalty  of  years  resuming  its 
sway :  "  He's  always  been  so  good  to  you."  .  .  . 

But  Mrs.  Pope  had  something  more  definite  to 
say  to  Marjorie,  and  came  to  it  at  last  with  a  tactful 
offhandedness.  Marjorie  communicated  it  to  Traf- 
ford  about  an  hour  later  on  his  return  from  the 
laboratory.  "  I  say,"  she  said,  "  old  Daffy's  engaged 
to  Magnet!" 

She  paused,  and  added  with  just  the  faintest 
trace  of  resentment  in  her  voice :  "  She  can  have  him, 
as  far  as  I'm  concerned." 

"  He  didn't  wait  long,"  said  Trafford  tactlessly. 

"  No,"  said  Marjorie;  "  he  didn't  wait  long.  .  .  . 
Of  course  she  got  him  on  the  rebound."  .  .  . 


§6 

Mrs.  Pope  was  only  a  day  or  so  ahead  of  a  cloud 
of  callers.  The  Carmel  girls  followed  close  upon  her, 
tall  figures  of  black  fur,  with  costly-looking  muffs 
and  a  rich  glitter  at  neck  and  wrist.  Marjorie  dis- 
played her  house,  talking  fluently  about  other  things, 
and  watching  for  effects.  The  Carmel  girls  ran  their 
swift  dark  eyes  over  her  appointments,  glanced 
quickly  from  side  to  side  of  her  rooms,  saw  only  too 

certainly  that  the  house  was  narrow  and  small . 

But  did  they  see  that  it  was  clever?  They  saw  at  any 
rate  that  she  meant  it  to  be  clever,  and  with  true 
Oriental  politeness  said  as  much  urgently  and  ex- 


242  MARRIAGE 

travagantly.  Then  there  were  the  Rambord  girls 
and  their  mother,  an  unobservant  lot  who  chattered 
about  the  ice  at  Prince's ;  then  Constance  Graham 
came  with  a  thoroughbred  but  very  dirty  aunt,  and 
then  Ottiline  Winchelsea  with  an  America  minor  poet, 
who  wanted  a  view  of  mountains  from  the  windows  at 
the  back,  and  said  the  bathroom  ought  to  be  done  in 
pink.  Then  Lady  Solomonson  came;  an  extremely 
expensive-looking  fair  lady  with  an  affectation  of 
cynicism,  a  keen  intelligence,  acutely  apt  conversa- 
tion, and  a  queer  effect  of  thinking  of  something  else 
all  the  time  she  was  talking.  She  missed  nothing.  .  .  . 

Hardly  anybody  failed  to  appreciate  the  charm 
and  decision  of  Marjorie's  use  of  those  Bokhara 
embroideries. 

They  would  have  been  cheap  at  double  the  price. 

§7 

And  then  our  two  young  people  went  out  to  their 
first  dinner-parties  together.  They  began  with  Traf- 
ford's  rich  friend  Solomonson,  who  had  played  so 
large  and  so  passive  a  part  in  their  first  meeting.  He 
had  behaved  with  a  sort  of  magnanimous  triumph 
over  the  marriage.  He  made  it  almost  his  personal 
affair,  as  though  he  had  brought  it  about.  "  I  knew 
there  was  a  girl  in  it,"  he  insisted,  "  and  you  told  me 
there  wasn't.  O-a-ah!  And  you  kept  me  in  that 
smell  of  disinfectant  and  things — what  a  chap  that 

doctor  was  for  spilling  stuff! — for  six  blessed  days! 
j> 

Marjorie  achieved  a  dress  at  once  simple  and 
good  with  great  facility  by  not  asking  the  price  until 
it  was  all  over.  (There  is  no  half-success  with  din- 
ner-dresses, either  the  thing  is  a  success  and  inestim- 
able, or  not  worth  having  at  any  price  at  all.)  It 


SETTLING  DOWN  243 

was  blue  with  a  thread  of  gold,  and  she  had  a  neck- 
lace of  blueish  moonstones,  gold-set,  and  her  hair 
ceased  to  be  copper  and  became  golden,  and  her  eyes 
unfathomable  blue.  She  was  radiant  with  health  and 
happiness,  no  one  else  there  had  her  clear  freshness, 
and  her  manner  was  as  restrained  an'l  dignified 
and  ready  as  a  proud  young  wife's  can  be.  Everyone 
seemed  to  like  her  and  respect  her  and  be  interested 
in  her,  and  Trafford  kissed  her  flushed  cheek  in  the 
hansom  as  they  came  home  again  and  crowned  her 
happiness.  It  had  been  quite  a  large  party,  and 
really  much  more  splendid  and  brilliant  than  any- 
thing she  had  ever  seen  before.  There  had  been  one 
old  gentleman  with  a  coloured  button  and  another 
with  a  ribbon;  there  had  been  a  countess  with  his- 
torical pearls,  and  half-a-dozen  other  people  one 
might  fairly  call  distinguished.  The  house  was  tre- 
mendous in  its  way,  spacious,  rich,  glowing  with 
lights,  abounding  in  vistas  and  fine  remote  back- 
grounds. In  the  midst  of  it  all  she  had  a  sudden 
thrill  at  the  memory  that  less  than  a  year  ago  she 
had  been  ignominiously  dismissed  from  the  dinner- 
table  by  her  father  for  a  hiccup.  .  .  . 

A  few  days  after  Aunt  Plessington  suddenly  asked 
the  Traffords  to  one  of  her  less  important  but  still 
interesting  gatherings ;  not  one  of  those  that  swayed 
the  world  perhaps,  but  one  which  Marjorie  was  given 
to  understand  achieved  important  subordinate  wag- 
ging. Aunt  Plessington  had  not  called,  she  explained 
in  her  note,  because  of  the  urgent  demands  the  Move- 
ment made  upon  her  time ;  it  was  her  wonderful  hard- 
breathing  way  never  to  call  on  anyone,  and  it  added 
tremendously  to  her  reputation;  none  the  less  it  ap- 
peared— though  here  the  scrawl  became  illegible — she 
meant  to  shove  and  steer  her  dear  niece  upward  at  a 
tremendous  pace.  They  were  even  asked  to  come  a 


244  MARRIAGE 

little  early  so  that  she  might  make  Trafford's  ac- 
quaintance. 

The  dress  was  duly  admired,  and  then  Aunt  Ples- 
sington — assuming  the  hearth-rug  and  forgetting  the 
little  matter  of  their  career — explained  quite  Na- 
poleonic and  wonderful  things  she  was  going  to  do 
with  her  Movement,  fresh  principles,  fresh  applica- 
tions, a  big  committee  of  all  the  "  names  " — they  were 
easy  to  get  if  you  didn't  bother  them  to  do  things — 
a  new  and  more  attractive  title,  "  Payment  in  Kind  " 
was  to  give  way  to  "  Reality  of  Reward,"  and  she 
herself  was  going  to  have  her  hair  bleached  bright 
white  (which  would  set  off  her  eyes  and  colour  and 
the  general  geniality  of  appearance  due  to  her  pro- 
jecting teeth),  and  so  greatly  increase  her  "  platform 
efficiency."  Hubert,  she  said,  was  toiling  away  hard 
at  the  detail  of  these  new  endeavours.  He  would  be 
down  in  a  few  minutes'  time.  Marjorie,  she  said, 
ought  to  speak  at  their  meetings.  It  would  help  both 
the  Traffords  to  get  on  if  Marjorie  cut  a  dash  at  the 
outset,  and  there  was  no  such  dash  to  be  cut  as  speak- 
ing at  Aunt  Plessington's  meetings.  It  was  catching 
on ;  all  next  season  it  was  sure  to  be  the  thing.  So 
many  promising  girls  allowed  themselves  to  be  sub- 
merged altogether  in  marriage  for  a  time,  and  when 
they  emerged  everyone  had  forgotten  the  promise  of 
their  debut.  She  had  an  air  of  rescuing  Marjorie 
from  an  impending  fate  by  disabusing  Trafford  from 
injurious  prepossessions.  .  .  . 

Presently  the  guests  began  to  drop  in,  a  vegeta- 
rian health  specialist,  a  rising  young  woman  factory 
inspector,  a  phrenologist  who  was  being  induced  to 
put  great  talents  to  better  uses  under  Aunt  Plessing- 
ton's influence,  his  dumb,  obscure,  but  inevitable  wife, 
a  colonial  bishop,  a  baroness  with  a  taste  rather  than 
a  capacity  for  intellectual  society,  a  wealthy  jam 


SETTLING  DOWN  245 

and  pickle  manufacturer  and  his  wife,  who  had  sub- 
scribed largely  to  the  funds  of  the  Movement  and 
wanted  to  meet  the  lady  of  title,  and  the  editor  of 
the  Movement's  organ,  Upward  and  On,  a  young 
gentleman  of  abundant  hair  and  cadaverous  silences, 
whom  Aunt  Plessington  patted  on  the  shoulder  and 
spoke  of  as  "  one  of  our  discoveries."  And  then 
Uncle  Hubert  came  down,  looking  ruffled  and  over- 
worked, with  his  ready-made  dress-tie — he  was  one 
of  those  men  who  can  never  master  the  art  of  tying 
a  bow — very  much  askew.  The  conversation  turned 
chiefly  on  the  Movement ;  if  it  strayed  Aunt  Plessing- 
ton reached  out  her  voice  after  it  and  brought  it 
back  in  a  masterful  manner. 

Through  soup  and  fish  Marjorie  occupied  herself 
with  the  inflexible  rigour  of  the  young  editor,  who  had 
brought  her  down.  When  she  could  give  her  atten- 
tion to  the  general  conversation  she  discovered  her 
husband  a  little  flushed  and  tackling  her  aunt  with 
an  expression  of  quiet  determination.  The  phrenolo- 
gist and  the  vegetarian  health  specialist  were  regard- 
ing him  with  amazement,  the  jam  and  pickle  manu- 
facturer's wife  was  evidently  deeply  shocked.  He 
was  refusing  to  believe  in  the  value  of  the  Movement, 
and  Aunt  Plessington  was  manifestly  losing  her 
temper. 

"  I  don't  see,  Mrs.  Plessington,"  he  was  saying, 
"  that  all  this  amounts  to  more  than  a  kind  of  Glor- 
ious District  Visiting.  That  is  how  I  see  it.  You 
want  to  attack  people  in  their  homes — before  they 
cry  out  to  you.  You  want  to  compel  them  by  this 
Payment  in  Kind  of  yours  to  do  what  you  want  them 
to  do  instead  of  trying  to  make  them  want  to  do  it. 
Now,  I  think  your  business  is  to  make  them  want  to 
do  it.  You  may  perhaps  increase  the  amount  of 
milk  in  babies,  and  the  amount  of  whitewash  in  cot- 


246  MARRIAGE 

tages  and  slums  by  your  methods — I  don't  dispute 
the  promise  of  your  statistics — but  you're  going  to 
do  it  at  a  cost  of  human  self-respect  that's  out  of  all 
proportion- 
Uncle  Hubert's  voice,  with  that  thick  utterance 
that  always  suggested  a  mouthful  of  plums,  came 
booming  down  the  table.  "  All  these  arguments,"  he 
said,  "  have  been  answered  long  ago." 

"  No  doubt,"  said  Trafford  with  a  faint  asperity. 
"  But  tell  me  the  answers." 

"  It's  ridiculous,"  said  Aunt  Plessington,  "  to  talk 
of  the  self-respect  of  the  kind  of  people — oh!  the 
very  dregs !" 

"  It's  just  because  the  plant  is  delicate  that  you've 
got  to  handle  it  carefully,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Here's  Miss  Gant,"  said  Aunt  Plessington, 
"  she  knows  the  strata  we  are  discussing.  She'll  tell 
you  they  have  positively  no  self-respect — none  at 
all." 

"  My  people,"  said  Miss  Gant,  as  if  in  conclusive 
testimony,  "  actually  conspire  with  their  employers 
to  defeat  me." 

"  I  don't  see  the  absence  of  self-respect  in  that," 
said  Trafford. 

"  But  all  their  interests " 

"  I'm  thinking  of  their  pride."    .     .     . 

The  discussion  lasted  to  the  end  of  dinner  and 
made  no  headway.  As  soon  as  the  ladies  were  in  the 
drawing-room,  Aunt  Plessington,  a  little  flushed  from 
the  conflict,  turned  on  Marjorie  and  said,  "  I  like 
your  husband.  He's  wrong-headed,  but  he's  young, 
and  he's  certainly  spirited.  He  ought  to  get  on  if 
he  wants  to.  Does  he  do  nothing  but  his  researches?" 

"  He  lectures  in  the  spring  term,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Ah !"  said  Aunt  Plessington  with  a  triumphant 
note,  "  you  must  alter  all  that.  You  must  interest 


SETTLING  DOWN  247 

him  in  wider  things.  You  must  bring  him  out  of  his 
shell,  and  let  him  see  what  it  is  to  deal  with  Affairs. 
Then  he  wouldn't  talk  such  nonsense  about  our 
Work." 

Marjorie  was  at  a  momentary  loss  for  a  reply, 
and  in  the  instant's  respite  Aunt  Plessington  turned 
to  the  jam  and  pickle  lady  and  asked  in  a  bright, 
encouraging  note :  "  Well !  And  how's  the  Village 
Club  getting  on?"  .  .  . 

She  had  another  lunge  at  Trafford  as  he  took 
his  leave.  "  You  must  come  again  soon,"  she  said. 
"  I  love  a  good  wrangle,  and  Hubert  and  I  never 
want  to  talk  about  our  Movement  to  any  one  but  un- 
believers. You  don't  know  the  beginnings  of  it  yet. 
Only  I  warn  you  they  have  a  way  of  getting  con- 
verted. I  warn  you."  .  .  . 

On  this  occasion  there  was  no  kissing  in  the  cab. 
Trafford  was  exasperated. 

"  Of  all  the  intolerable  women !"  he  said,  and  was 
silent  for  a  time. 

"  The  astounding  part  of  it  is,"  he  burst  out, 
"  that  this  sort  of  thing,  this  Movement  and  all  the 
rest  of  it,  does  really  give  the  quality  of  English 
public  affairs.  It's  like  a  sample — dredged.  The — 
the  cheapness  of  it!  Raised  voices,  rash  assertions, 
sham  investigations,  meetings  and  committees  and 
meetings,  that's  the  stuff  of  it,  and  politicians  really 
have  to  attend  to  it,  and  silly,  ineffective,  irritating 
bills  really  get  drafted  and  messed  about  with  and 
passed  on  the  strength  of  it.  Public  affairs  are  still 
in  the  Dark  Ages.  Nobody  now  would  think  of 
getting  together  a  scratch  committee  of  rich  old 
women  and  miscellaneous  conspicuous  people  to  de- 
sign an  electric  tram,  and  jabbering  and  jabbering 
and  jabbering,  and  if  any  one  objects  " — a  note  of 
personal  bitterness  came  into  his  voice — "jabbering 


248  MARRIAGE 

faster ;  but  nobody  thinks  it  ridiculous  to  attempt  the 
organization  of  poor  people's  affairs  in  that  sort  of 
way.  This  project  of  the  supersession  of  Wages  by 
Payment  in  Kind — oh!  it's  childish.  If  it  wasn't  it 
would  be  outrageous  and  indecent.  Your  uncle  and 
aunt  haven't  thought  for  a  moment  of  any  single  one 
of  the  necessary  consequences  of  these  things  they 
say  their  confounded  Movement  aims  at,  effects  upon 
the  race,  upon  public  spirit,  upon  people's  habits  and 
motives.  They've  just  a  queer  craving  to  feel  pow- 
erful and  influential,  which  they  think  they  can  best 
satisfy  by  upsetting  the  lives  of  no  end  of  harmless 
poor  people — the  only  people  they  dare  upset — and 
that's  about  as  far  as  they  go.  .  .  .  Your  aunt's 
detestable,  Marjorie." 

Marjorie  had  never  seen  him  so  deeply  affected  by 
anything  but  herself.  It  seemed  to  her  he  was  need- 
lessly disturbed  by  a  trivial  matter.  He  sulked  for 
a  space,  and  then  broke  out  again. 

"  That  confounded  woman  talks  of  my  physical 
science,"  he  said,  "  as  if  research  were  an  amiable 
weakness,  like  collecting  postage  stamps.  And  it's 
changed  human  conditions  more  in  the  last  ten  years 
than  all  the  parliamentary  wire-pullers  and  legisla- 
tors and  administrative  experts  have  done  in  two  cen- 
turies. And  for  all  that,  there's  more  clerks  in  White- 
hall than  professors  of  physics  in  the  whole  of  Eng- 
land." .  .  . 

"  I  suppose  it's  the  way  that  sort  of  thing  gets 
done,"  said  Marjorie,  after  an  interval. 

"  That  sort  of  thing  doesn't  get  done,"  snapped 
Trafford.  "  All  these  people  burble  about  with  their 
movements  and  jobs,  and  lectures  and  stuff — and 
things  happen.  Like  some  one  getting  squashed  to 
death  in  a  crowd.  Nobody  did  it,  but  anybody  in 


SETTLING  DOWN  249 

the  muddle  can  claim  to  have  done  it — if  only  they've 
got  the  cheek  of  your  Aunt  Plessington." 

He  seemed  to  have  finished. 

"  Done!"  he  suddenly  broke  out  again.  "  Why ! 
people  like  your  Aunt  Plessington  don't  even  know 
where  the  handle  is.  If  they  ventured  to  look  for  it, 
they'd  give  the  whole  show  away !  Done,  indeed !" 

"  Here  we  are!"  said  Marjorie,  a  little  relieved  to 
find  the  hansom  turning  out  of  King's  Road  into 
their  own  side  street.  .  .  . 

And  then  Marjorie  wore  the  blue  dress  with  great 
success  at  the  Carmels'.  The  girls  came  and  looked 
at  it  and  admired  it — it  was  no  mere  politeness. 
They  admitted  there  was  style  about  it,  a  quality — 
there  was  no  explaining.  "  You're  wonderful, 
Madge!"  cried  the  younger  Carmel  girl. 

The  Carmel  boy,  seizing  the  opportunity  of  a 
momentary  seclusion  in  a  corner,  ended  a  short  but 
rather  portentous  silence  with  "  I  say,  you  do  look 
ripping,"  in  a  voice  that  implied  the  keenest  regret 
for  the  slacknesses  of  a  summer  that  was  now  infin- 
itely remote  to  Marjorie.  It  was  ridiculous  that  the 
Carmel  boy  should  have  such  emotions — he  was  six 
years  younger  than  Trafford  and  only  a  year  older 
than  Marjorie,  and  yet  she  was  pleased  by  his 
manifest  wound.  .  .  . 

There  was  only  one  little  thing  at  the  back  of 
her  mind  that  alloyed  her  sense  of  happy  and  com- 
plete living  that  night,  and  that  was  the  ghost  of  an 
addition  sum.  At  home,  in  her  pretty  bureau,  a  little 
gathering  pile  of  bills,  as  yet  unpaid,  and  an  empty 
cheque-book  with  appealing  counterfoils,  awaited  her 
attention. 

Marjorie  had  still  to  master  the  fact  that  all  the 
fine  braveries  and  interests  and  delights  of  life  that 


250  MARRIAGE 

offer  themselves  so  amply  to  the  favoured  children 
of  civilization,  trail  and,  since  the  fall  of  man  at 
any  rate,  have  trailed  after  them  something — some- 
thing, the  justification  of  morality,  the  despair  of 
all  easy,  happy  souls,  the  unavoidable  drop  of  bitter- 
ness in  the  cup  of  pleasure — the  Reckoning. 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES 
§  1 

WHEN  the  intellectual  history  of  this  time  comes  to 
be  written,  nothing  I  think  will  stand  out  more 
strikingly  than  the  empty  gulf  in  quality  between  the 
superb  and  richly  fruitful  scientific  investigations 
that  are  going  on  and  the  general  thought  of  other 
educated  sections  of  the  community.  I  do  not  mean 
that  the  scientific  men  are  as  a  whole  a  class  of  super- 
men, dealing  with  and  thinking  about  everything  in 
a  way  altogether  better  than  the  common  run  of 
humanity,  but  that  in  their  own  field,  they  think  and 
work  with  an  intensity,  an  integrity,  a  breadth,  bold- 
ness, patience,  thoroughness  and  faithfulness  that 
(excepting  only  a  few  artists)  puts  their  work  out 
of  all  comparison  with  any  other  human  activity. 
Often  the  field  in  which  the  work  is  done  is  very 
narrow,  and  almost  universally  the  underlying  phil- 
osophy is  felt  rather  than  apprehended.  A  scientific 
man  may  be  large  and  deep-minded,  deliberate  and 
personally  detached  in  his  work,  and  hasty,  common- 
place and  superficial  in  every  other  relation  of  life. 
Nevertheless  it  is  true  that  in  these  particular  direc- 
tions the  human  mind  has  achieved  a  new  and  higher 
quality  of  attitude  and  gesture,  a  veracity,  self- 
detachment  and  self-abnegating  vigour  of  criticism 
that  tend  to  spread  out  and  must  ultimately  spread 
out  to  every  other  human  affair.  In  these  uncon- 
troversial  issues  at  least  mankind  has  learnt  the  rich 
rewards  that  ensue  from  patience  and  infinite  pains, 


252  MARRIAGE 

The  peculiar  circumstances  of  Trafford's  birth 
and  upbringing  had  accentuated  his  natural  disposi- 
tion toward  this  new  thoroughness  of  intellectual 
treatment  which  has  always  distinguished  the  great 
artist,  and  which  to-day  is  also  the  essential  quality 
of  the  scientific  method.  He  had  lived  apart  from 
any  urgency  to  produce  and  compete  in  the  common 
business  of  the  world;  his  natural  curiosities,  fed  and 
encouraged  by  his  natural  gifts,  had  grown  into  a 
steady  passion  for  clarity  and  knowledge.  But  with 
him  there  was  no  specialization.  He  brought  out 
from  his  laboratory  into  the  everyday  affairs  of  the 
world  the  same  sceptical  restraint  of  judgment  which 
is  the  touchstone  of  scientific  truth.  This  made  him 
a  tepid  and  indeed  rather  a  scornful  spectator  of 
political  and  social  life.  Party  formulae,  interna- 
tional rivalries,  social  customs,  and  very  much  of  the 
ordinary  law  of  our  state  impressed  him  as  a  kind  of 
fungoid  growth  out  of  a  fundamental  intellectual 
muddle.  It  all  maintained  itself  hazardously,  chang- 
ing and  adapting  itself  unintelligently  to  unseen  con- 
ditions. He  saw  no  ultimate  truth  in  this  seething 
welter  of  human  efforts,  no  tragedy  as  yet  in  its 
defeats,  no  value  in  its  victories.  It  had  to  go  on,  he 
believed,  until  the  spreading  certitudes  of  the  scien- 
tific method  pierced  its  unsubstantial  thickets,  burst 
its  delusive  films,  drained  away  its  folly.  Aunt  Ples- 
sington's  talk  of  order  and  progress  and  the  influence 
of  her  Movement  impressed  his  mind  very  much  as  the 
cackle  of  some  larger  kind  of  hen — which  cackles 
because  it  must.  Only  Aunt  Plessington  being  hu- 
man simply  imagined  the  egg.  She  laid — on  the 
plane  of  the  ideal.  When  the  great  nonsensical  issues 
between  liberal  and  conservative,  between  socialist 
and  individualist,  between  "  Anglo-Saxon "  and 
"  Teuton,"  between  the  "  white  race  "  and  the  "  yel- 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   253 

low  race  "  arose  in  Trafford's  company,  he  would  if 
he  felt  cheerful  take  one  side  or  the  other  as  chance 
or  his  amusement  with  his  interlocutors  determined, 
and  jest  and  gibe  at  the  opponent's  inconsistencies, 
and  if  on  the  other  hand  he  chanced  to  be  irritable  he 
would  lose  his  temper  at  this  "  chewing  of  mesembry- 
anthemum  "  and  sulk  into  silence.  "  Chewing  mesem- 
bryanthemum "  was  one  of  Trafford's  favourite 
images, — no  doubt  the  reader  knows  that  abundant 
fleshy  Mediterranean  weed  and  the  weakly  unpleasant 
wateriness  of  its  substance.  He  went  back  to  his 
laboratory  and  his  proper  work  after  such  discus- 
sions with  a  feeling  of  escape,  as  if  he  shut  a  door 
upon  a  dirty  and  undisciplined  market-place  crowded 
with  mental  defectives.  Yet  even  before  he  met  and 
married  Marjorie,  there  was  a  queer  little  undertow 
of  thought  in  his  mind  which  insisted  that  this  busi- 
ness could  not  end  with  door-slamming,  that  he  didn't 
altogether  leave  the  social  confusion  outside  his 
panels  when  he  stood  alone  before  his  apparatus,  and 
that  sooner  or  later  that  babble  of  voices  would  force 
his  defences  and  overcome  his  disdain. 

His  particular  work  upon  the  intimate  constitu- 
tion of  matter  had  broadened  very  rapidly  in  his 
hands.  The  drift  of  his  work  had  been  to  identify 
all  colloids  as  liquid  solutions  of  variable  degrees  of 
viscosity,  and  to  treab  crystalline  bodies  as  the  only 
solids.  He  had  dealt  with  oscillating  processes  in 
colloid  bodies  with  especial  reference  to  living  matter. 
He  had  passed  from  a  study  of  the  melting  and  tough- 
ening of  glass  to  the  molecular  structure  of  a  num- 
ber of  elastic  bodies,  and  so,  by  a  characteristic  leap 
into  botanical  physiology,  to  the  states  of  resinous 
and  gummy  substances  at  the  moment  of  secretion. 
He  worked  at  first  upon  a  false  start,  and  then  re- 
sumed to  discover  a  growing  illumination.  He  found 


254  MARRIAGE 

himself  in  the  presence  of  phenomena  that  seemed  to 
him  to  lie  near  the  still  undiscovered  threshold  to  the 
secret  processes  of  living  protoplasm.  He  was,  as  it 
were,  breaking  into  biology  by  way  of  molecular 
physics.  He  spent  many  long  nights  of  deep  excite- 
ment, calculating  and  arranging  the  development  of 
these  seductive  intimations.  It  was  this  work  which 
his  marriage  had  interrupted,  and  to  which  he  was 
now  returning. 

He  was  surprised  to  find  how  difficult  it  was  to 
take  it  up  again.  He  had  been  only  two  months 
away  from  it,  and  yet  already  it  had  not  a  little  of 
the  feeling  of  a  relic  taken  from  a  drawer.  Some- 
thing had  faded.  It  was  at  first  as  if  a  film  had 
come  over  his  eyes,  so  that  he  could  no  longer  see 
these  things  clearly  and  subtly  and  closely.  His 
senses,  his  emotions,  had  been  living  in  a  stirring  and 
vivid  illumination.  Now  in  this  cool  quietude  bright 
clouds  of  coloured  memory-stuff  swam  distractingly 
before  his  eyes.  Phantom  kisses  on  his  lips,  the  mem- 
ory of  touches  and  the  echoing  vibrations  of  an 
adorable  voice,  the  thought  of  a  gay  delightful  fire- 
side and  the  fresh  recollection  of  a  companion 
intensely  felt  beside  him,  effaced  the  delicate  pro- 
fundities of  this  dim  place.  Durgan  hovered  about 
him,  helpful  and  a  mute  reproach.  Trafford  had  to 
force  his  attention  daily  for  the  better  part  of  two 
weeks  before  he  had  fully  recovered  the  fine  enchant- 
ing interest  of  that  suspended  work. 


At  last  one  day  he  had  the  happiness  of  posses- 
sion again.  He  had  exactly  the  sensation  one  gets 
when  some  hitherto  intractable  piece  of  a  machine 
one  is  putting  together,  clicks  neatly  and  beyond  all 
hoping,  into  its  place.  He  found  himself  working  in 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES    255 

the  old  style,  with  the  hours  slipping  by  disregarded. 
He  sent  out  Durgan  to  get  him  tobacco  and  tea  and 
smoked-salmon  sandwiches,  and  he  stayed  in  the  la- 
boratory all  night.  He  went  home  about  half-past 
five,  and  found  a  white-faced,  red-eyed  Marjorie  still 
dressed,  wrapped  in  a  travelling-rug,  and  crumpled 
and  asleep  in  his  study  arm-chair  beside  the  grey 
ashes  of  an  extinct  fire. 

In  the  instant  before  she  awoke  he  could  see  what 
a  fragile  and  pitiful  being  a  healthy  and  happy 
young  wife  can  appear.  Her  pose  revealed  an  un- 
suspected slender  weakness  of  body,  her  face  some- 
thing infantile  and  wistful  he  had  still  to  reckon 
with.  She  awoke  with  a  start  and  stared  at  him  for 
a  moment,  and  at  the  room  about  her.  "  Oh,  where 
have  you  been?"  she  asked  almost  querulously. 
"Where  have  you  been?" 

"  But  my  dear !"  he  said,  as  one  might  speak  to 
a  child,  "  why  aren't  you  in  bed?  It's  just  dawn." 

"  Oh,"  she  said,  "  I  waited  and  I  waited.  It 
seemed  you  must  come.  I  read  a  book.  And  then  I 
fell  asleep."  And  then  with  a  sob  of  feeble  self-pity, 
"  And  here  I  am !"  She  rubbed  the  back  of  her  hand 
into  one  eye  and  shivered.  "  I'm  cold,"  she  said, 
"  and  I  want  some  tea." 

"  Let's  make  some,"  said  Trafford. 

"  It's  been  horrible  waiting,"  said  Marjorie  with- 
out moving ;  "  horrible !  Where  have  you  been  ?" 

"  I've  been  working.  I  got  excited  by  my  work. 
I've  been  at  the  laboratory.  I've  had  the  best  spell 
of  work  I've  ever  had  since  our  marriage." 

"  But  I  have  been  up  all  night !"  she  cried  with 
her  face  and  voice  softening  to  tears.  "  How  could 
you?  How  could  you?" 

He  was  surprised  by  her  weeping.  He  was  still 
more  surprised  by  the  self-abandonment  that  allowed 


256  MARRIAGE 

her  to  continue.  "  I've  been  working,"  he  repeated, 
and  then  looked  about  with  a  man's  helplessness  for 
the  tea  apparatus.  One  must  have  hot  water  and  a 
teapot  and  a  kettle;  he  would  find  those  in  the 
kitchen.  He  strolled  thoughtfully  out  of  the  room, 
thinking  out  the  further  details  of  tea-making  all 
mixed  up  with  amazement  at  Marjorie,  while  she  sat 
wiping  her  eyes  with  a  crumpled  pocket-handker- 
chief. Presently  she  followed  him  down  with  the  rug 
about  her  like  a  shawl,  and  stood  watching  him  as  he 
lit  a  fire  of  wood  and  paper  among  the  ashes  in  the 
kitchen  fireplace.  "  It's  been  dreadful,"  she  said,  not 
offering  to  help. 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  on  his  knees,  "  I'd  really  got 
hold  of  my  work  at  last." 

"  But  you  should  have  sent " 

"  I  was  thinking  of  my  work.    I  clean  forgot." 

"Forgot?" 

"  Absolutely." 

"  Forgot — me!" 

"  Of  course,"  said  Trafford,  with  a  slightly  puz- 
zled air,  "  you  don't  see  it  as  I  do." 

The  kettle  engaged  him  for  a  time.  Then  he 
threw  out  a  suggestion.  "  We'll  have  to  have  a  tele- 
phone." 

"  I  couldn't  imagine  where  you  were.  I  thought 
of  all  sorts  of  things.  I  almost  came  round — but  I 
was  so  horribly  afraid  I  mightn't  find  you." 

He  renewed  his  suggestion  of  a  telephone. 

"  So  that  if  I  really  want  you —  -"  said  Mar- 
jorie. "  Or  if  I  just  want  to  feel  you're  there." 

"  Yes,"  said  Trafford  slowly,  jabbing  a  piece  of 
firewood  into  the  glow;  but  it  was  chiefly  present  in 
his  mind  that  much  of  that  elaborate  experimenting 
of  his  wasn't  at  all  a  thing  to  be  cut  athwart  by  the 
exasperating  gusts  of  a  telephone  bell  clamouring 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES    257 

for  attention.  Hitherto  the  laboratory  telephone 
had  been  in  the  habit  of  disconnecting  itself  early  in 
the  afternoon. 

And  yet  after  all  it  was  this  instrument,  the  same 
twisted  wire  and  little  quivering  tympanum,  that  had 
brought  back  Marjorie  into  his  life. 


And  now  Trafford  fell  into  a  great  perplexity  of 
mind.  His  banker  had  called  his  attention  to  the  fact 
that  his  account  was  overdrawn  to  the  extent  of 
three  hundred  and  thirteen  pounds,  and  he  had  been 
under  that  vague  sort  of  impression  one  always  has 
about  one's  current  account  that  he  was  a  hundred 
and  fifty  or  so  to  the  good.  His  first  impression  was 
that  those  hitherto  infallible  beings,  those  unseen 
gnomes  of  the  pass-book  whose  lucid  figures,  neat 
tickings,  and  unrelenting  additions  constituted  banks 
to  his  imagination,  must  have  made  a  mistake;  his 
second  that  some  one  had  tampered  with  a  cheque. 
His  third  thought  pointed  to  Marjorie  and  the  easy 
circumstances  of  his  home.  For  a  fortnight  now 
she  had  been  obviously  ailing,  oddly  irritable  ;  he  did 
not  understand  the  change  in  her,  but  it  sufficed  to 
prevent  his  taking  the  thing  to  her  at  once  and  going 
into  it  with  her  as  he  would  have  done  earlier. 
Instead  he  had  sent  for  his  pass-book,  and  in  the 
presence  of  its  neat  columns  realized  for  the  first 
time  the  meaning  of  Marjorie's  "  three  hundred 
pounds."  Including  half-a-dozen  cheques  to  Ox- 
bridge tradesmen  for  her  old  debts,  she  had  spent, 
he  discovered,  nearly  seven  hundred  and  fifty. 

He  sat  before  the  little  bundle  of  crumpled  strips 
of  pink  and  white,  perforated,  purple  stamped  and 
effaced,  in  a  state  of  extreme  astonishment.  It  was  no 


258  MARRIAGE 

small  factor  in  his  amazement  to  note  how  very  care- 
lessly some  of  those  cheques  of  Marjorie's  had  been 
written.  Several  she  had  not  even  crossed.  The  effect 
of  it  all  was  that  she'd  just  spent  his  money — freely 
— with  an  utter  disregard  of  the  consequences. 

Up  to  that  moment  it  had  never  occurred  to 
Trafford  that  anybody  one  really  cared  for,  could  be 
anything  but  punctilious  about  money.  Now  here, 
with  an  arithmetical  exactitude  of  demonstration,  he 
perceived  that  Marjorie  wasn't. 

It  was  so  tremendous  a  discovery  for  him,  so  dis- 
concerting and  startling,  that  he  didn't  for  two  days 
say  a  word  to  her  about  it.  He  couldn't  think  of  a 
word  to  say.  He  felt  that  even  to  put  these  facts 
before  her  amounted  to  an  accusation  of  disloyalty 
and  selfishness  that  he  hadn't  the  courage  io  make. 
His  work  stopped  altogether.  He  struggled  hourly 

with  that  accusation.  Did  she  realize ?  There 

seemed  no  escape  from  his  dilemma ;  either  she  didn't 
care  or  she  didn't  understand ! 

His  thoughts  went  back  to  the  lake  of  Orta,  when 
he  had  put  all  his  money  at  her  disposal.  She  had 
been  surprised,  and  now  he  perceived  she  had  also 
been  a  little  frightened.  The  chief  excuse  he  could 
find  for  her  was  that  she  was  inexperienced — abso- 
lutely inexperienced. 

Even  now,  of  course,  she  was  drawing  fresh 
cheques.  .  .  . 

He  would  have  to  pull  himself  together,  and  go 
into  the  whole  thing — for  all  its  infinite  disagreeable- 
ness — with  her.  .  .  . 

But  it  was  Marjorie  who  broached  the  subject. 

He  had  found  work  at  the  laboratory  unsatis- 
factory, and  after  lunching  at  his  club  he  had  come; 
home  and  gone  to  his  study  in  order  to  think  out  the 
discussion  he  contemplated  with  hen  She  came  in  to 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   259 

him  as  he  sat  at  his  desk.  "  Busy?"  she  said.  "  Not 
very,"  he  answered,  and  she  came  up  to  him,  kissed 
his  head,  and  stood  beside  him  with  her  hand  on  his 
shoulder. 

"Pass-book?"  she  asked. 

He  nodded. 

"  I've  been  overrunning." 

"  No  end." 

The  matter  was  opened.    [What  would  she  say? 

She  bent  to  his  ear  and  whispered.  "  I'm  going 
to  overrun  some  more." 

His  voice  was  resentful.  "  You  can't,"  he  said 
compactly  without  looking  at  her.  "  You've  spent — 
enough." 

"  There's— things." 

"What  things?" 

Her  answer  took  some  time  in  coming.  "  We'll 
have  to  give  a  wedding  present  to  Daffy.  ...  I  shall 
want — some  more  furniture." 

Well,  he  had  to  go  into  it  now.  "  I  don't  think 
you  can  have  it,"  he  said,  and  then  as  she  remained 
silent,  "  Marjorie,  do  you  know  how  much  money 
I've  got?" 

"  Six  thousand." 

"  I  had.  But  we've  spent  nearly  a  thousand 
pounds.  Yes — one  thousand  pounds — over  and 
above  income.  We  meant  to  spend  four  hundred. 
And  now,  we've  got — hardly  anything  over  five." 

"  Five  thousand,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Five  thousand." 

"  And  there's  your  salary." 

"  Yes,  but  at  this  pace " 

"  Dear,"  said  Marjorie,  and  her  hands  came 
\bout  his  neck,  "  dear — there's  sometl  ing " 

She  broke  off.    An  unfamiliar  quality  in  her  voice 


260  MARRIAGE 

struck  into  him.  He  turned  his  head  to  see  her  face, 
rose  to  his  feet  staring  at  her. 

This  remarkable  young  woman  had  become  soft 
and  wonderful  as  April  hills  across  which  clouds  are 
sweeping.  Her  face  was  as  if  he  had  never  seen  it 
before  ;  her  eyes  bright  with  tears. 

"  Oh  !  don't  let's  spoil  things  by  thinking  of 
money,"  she  said.  "  I've  got  something  -  "  Her 
voice  fell  to  a  whisper.  "  Don't  let's  spoil  things  by 
thinking  of  money.  .  .  .  It's  too  good,  dear,  to  be 
true.  It's  too  good  to  be  true.  It  makes  every- 
thing perfect.  .  .  .  We'll  have  to  furnish  that 
little  room.  I  didn't  dare  to  hope  it  —  somehow. 
I've  been  so  excited  and  afraid.  But  we've  got  to 
furnish  that  little  room  there  —  that  empty  little 
room  upstairs,  dear,  that  we  left  over.  .  .  .  Oh 
my  dear!  my  dear!" 


The  world  of  Trafford  and  Marjorie  was  filled 
and  transfigured  by  the  advent  of  their  child. 

For  two  days  of  abundant  silences  he  had  been 
preparing  a  statement  of  his  case  for  her,  he  had  been 
full  of  the  danger  to  his  research  and  all  the  waste  of 
his  life  that  her  extravagance  threatened.  He  wanted 
to  tell  her  just  all  that  his  science  meant  to  him, 
explain  how  his  income  and  life  had  all  been  arranged 
to  leave  him,  mind  and  time  and  energy,  free  for  these 
commanding  investigations.  His  life  was  to  him  the 
service  of  knowledge  —  or  futility.  He  had  perceived 
that  she  did  not  understand  this  in  him  ;  that  for  her, 
life  was  a  blaze  of  eagerly  sought  experiences  and 
gratifications.  So  far  he  had  thought  out  things 
and  had  them  ready  for  her.  But  now  all  this  im- 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES    261 

pending  discussion  vanished  out  of  his  world.  Their 
love  was  to  be  crowned  by  the  miracle  of  parentage. 
This  fact  flooded  his  outlook  and  submerged  every 
other  consideration. 

This  manifest  probability  came  to  him  as  if  it  were 
an  unforeseen  marvel.  It  was  as  if  he  had  never 
thought  of  such  a  thing  before,  as  though  a  fact 
entirely  novel  in  the  order  of  the  universe  had  come 
into  existence.  Marjorie  became  again  magical  and 
wonderful  for  him,  but  in  a  manner  new  and  strange, 
she  was  grave,  solemn,  significant.  He  was  filled  with 
a  passionate  solicitude  for  her  welfare,  and  a  pas- 
sionate desire  to  serve  her.  It  seemed  impossible  to 
him  that  only  a  day  or  so  ago  he  should  have  been 
accusing  her  in  his  heart  of  disloyalty,  and  searching 
for  excuses  and  mitigations.  .  .  . 

All  the  freshness  of  his  first  love  for  Marjorie 
returned,  his  keen  sense  of  the  sweet  gallantry  of  her 
voice  and  bearing,  his  admiration  for  the  swift,  fal- 
conlike  swoop  of  her  decisions,  for  the  grace  and  poise 
of  her  body,  and  the  steady  frankness  of  her  eyes ;  but 
now  it  was  all  charged  with  his  sense  of  this  new  joint 
life  germinating  at  the  heart  of  her  slender  vigour, 
spreading  throughout  her  being  to  change  it  alto- 
gether into  womanhood  for  ever.  In  this  new  light 
his  passion  for  research  and  all  the  scheme  of  his  life 
appeared  faded  and  unworthy,  as  much  egotism  as  if 
he  had  been  devoted  to  hunting  or  golf  or  any  such 
aimless  preoccupation.  Fatherhood  gripped  him  and 
faced  him  about.  It  was  manifestly  a  monstrous 
thing  that  he  should  ever  have  expected  Marjorie  to 
become  a  mere  undisturbing  accessory  to  the  selfish 
intellectualism  of  his  career,  to  shave  and  limit  her- 
self to  a  mere  bachelor  income,  and  play  no  part  of 
her  own  in  the  movement  of  the  world.  He  knew  bet- 
ter now.  Research  must  fall  into  its  proper  place, 


262  MARRIAGE 

and  for  his  immediate  business  he  must  set  to  work  to 
supplement  his  manifestly  inadequate  resources. 

At  first  he  could  form  no  plan  at  all  for  doing 
that.  He  determined  that  research  must  still  have 
his  morning  hours  until  lunch-time,  and,  he  privately 
resolved,  some  part  of  the  night.  The  rest  of  his 
day,  he  thought,  he  would  set  aside  for  a  time  to 
money-making.  But  he  was  altogether  inexperienced 
in  the  methods  of  money-making;  it  was  a  new  prob- 
lem, and  a  new  sort  of  problem  to  him  altogether.  He 
discovered  himself  helpless  and  rather  silly  in  the 
matter.  The  more  obvious  possibilities  seemed  to  be 
that  he  might  lecture  upon  his  science  or  write.  He 
communicated  with  a  couple  of  lecture  agencies,  and 
was  amazed  at  their  scepticism ;  no  doubt  he  knew  his 
science,  on  that  point  they  were  complimentary  in  a 
profuse,  unconvincing  manner,  but  could  he  interest 
like  X — and  here  they  named  a  notorious  quack — 
could  he  draw?  He  offered  Science  Notes  to  a  week- 
ly periodical;  the  editor  answered  that  for  the  pur- 
poses of  his  publication  he  preferred,  as  between  pro- 
fessors and  journalists,  journalists.  "  You  real 
scientific  men,"  he  said,  "  are  no  doubt  a  thousand 
times  more  accurate  and  novel  and  all  that,  but  as 

no  one  seems  able  to  understand  you "    He  went 

to  his  old  fellow-student,  Gwenn,  who  was  editing 
The  Scientific  Review,  and  through  him  he  secured 
some  semi-popular  lectures,  which  involved,  he  found, 
travelling  about  twenty-nine  miles  weekly  at  the  rate 
of  four-and-sixpence  a  mile — counting  nothing  for 
the  lectures.  Afterwards  Gwenn  arranged  for  some 
regular  notes  on  physics  and  micro-chemistry.  Traf- 
ford  made  out  a  weekly  time-table,  on  whose  white 
of  dignity,  leisure,  and  the  honourable  pursuit  of 
knowledge,  a  diaper  of  red  marked  the  claims  of 
domestic  necessity. 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES    263 

Q     5 

It  was  astonishing  how  completely  this  coming 
child  dominated  the  whole  atmosphere  and  all  the 
circumstances  of  the  Traffordk.  It  became  their 
central  fact,  to  which  everything  else  turned  and 
pointed.  Its  effect  on  Marjorie's  circle  of  school  and 
college  friends  was  prodigious.  She  was  the  first  of 
their  company  to  cross  the  mysterious  boundaries  of 
a  woman's  life.  She  became  to  them  a  heroine  ming- 
led with  something  of  the  priestess.  They  called 
upon  her  more  abundantly  and  sat  with  her,  noted 
the  change  in  her  eyes  and  voice  and  bearing,  talking 
with  a  kind  of  awe  and  a  faint  diffidence  of  the  prom- 
ised new  life. 

Many  of  them  had  been  deeply  tinged  by  the 
women's  suffrage  movement,  the  feminist  note  was 
strong  among  them,  and  when  one  afternoon  Ottiline 
Winchelsea  brought  round  Agatha  Alimony,  the 
novelist,  and  Agatha  said  in  that  deep-ringing  voice 
of  hers :  "  I  hope  it  will  be  a  girl,  so  that  presently  she 
may  fight  the  battle  of  her  sex,"  there  was  the  pro- 
foundest  emotion.  But  when  Marjorie  conveyed  that 
to  Trafford  he  was  lacking  in  response. 

"  I  want  a  boy,"  he  said,  and,  being  pressed  for  a 
reason,  explained :  "  Oh,  one  likes  to  have  a  boy.  I 
want  him  with  just  your  quick  eyes  and  ears,  my 
dear,  and  just  my  own  safe  and  certain  hands." 

Mrs.  Pope  received  the  news  with  that  depth  and 
aimless  complexity  of  emotion  which  had  now  become 
her  habitual  method  with  Marjorie.  She  kissed  and 
clasped  her  daughter,  and  thought  confusedly  over 

her  shoulder,  and  said :  "  Of  course,  dear Oh,  I 

do  so  hope  it  won't  annoy  your  father."  Daffy  was 
"  nice,"  but  vague,  and  sufficiently  feminist  to  wish -it 


264  MARRIAGE 

a  daughter,  and  the  pseudo-twins  said  "#00- ray!" 
and  changed  the  subject  at  the  earliest  possible  op- 
portunity. But  Theodore  was  deeply  moved  at  the 
prospect  of  becoming  an  uncle,  and  went  apart  and 
mused  deeply  and  darkly  thereon  for  some  time.  It 
was  difficult  to  tell  just  what  Trafford's  mother 
thought,  she  was  complex  and  subtle,  and  evidently 
did  not  show  Marjorie  all  that  was  in  her  mind;  but 
at  any  rate  it  was  clear  the  prospect  of  a  grandchild 
pleased  and  interested  her.  And  about  Aunt  Ples- 
sington's  views  there  was  no  manner  of  doubt  at  all. 
She  thought,  and  remarked  judicially,  as  one  might 
criticize  a  game  of  billiards,  that  on  the  whole  it  was 
just  a  little  bit  too  soon. 

§6 

Marjorie  kept  well  throughout  March  and  April, 
and  then  suddenly  she  grew  unutterably  weary  and 
uncomfortable  in  London.  The  end  of  April  came 
hot  and  close  and  dry — it  might  have  been  July  for 
the  heat — the  scrap  of  garden  wilted,  and  the  streets 
were  irritating  with  fine  dust  and  blown  scraps  of 
paper  and  drifting  straws.  She  could  think  of  noth- 
ing but  the  shade  of  trees,  and  cornfields  under  sun- 
light and  the  shadows  of  passing  clouds.  So  Traf- 
ford  took  out  an  old  bicycle  and  wandered  over  the 
home  counties  for  three  days,  and  at  last  hit  upon  a 
little  country  cottage  near  Great  Missenden,  a  cot- 
tage a  couple  of  girl  artists  had  furnished  and  now 
wanted  to  let.  It  had  a  long,  untidy  vegetable  gar- 
den and  a  small  orchard  and  drying-ground,  with  an 
old,  superannuated  humbug  of  a  pear-tree  near  the 
centre  surrounded  by  a  green  seat,  and  high  hedges 
with  the  promise  of  honeysuckle  and  dog-roses,  and 
gaps  that  opened  into  hospitable  beechwoods — woods 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   265 

not  so  thick  but  that  there  were  glades  of  bluebells, 
bracken  and,  to  be  exact,  in  places  embattled  sting- 
ing-nettles. He  took  it  and  engaged  a  minute,  active, 
interested,  philoprogenitive  servant  girl  for  it,  and 
took  Marjorie  thither  in  a  taxi-cab.  She  went  out, 
wrapped  in  a  shawl,  and  sat  under  the  pear-tree  and 
cried  quietly  with  weakness  and  sentiment  and  the 
tenderness  of  afternoon  sunshine,  and  forthwith 
began  to  pick  up  wonderfully,  and  was  presently 
writing  to  Trafford  to  buy  her  a  dog  to  go  for  walks 
with,  while  he  was  away  in  London. 

Trafford  was  still  struggling  along  with  his  re- 
search in  spite  of  a  constant  gravitation  to  the 
cottage  and  Marjorie's  side,  but  he  was  also  doing 
his  best  to  grapple  with  the  difficulties  of  his  financial 
situation.  His  science  notes,  which  were  very  uncon- 
genial and  difficult  to  do,  and  his  lecturing,  still  left 
his  income  far  behind  his  expenditure,  and  the  prob- 
lem of  minimising  the  inevitable  fresh  inroads  on  his 
capital  was  insistent  and  distracting.  He  discovered 
that  he  could  manage  his  notes  more  easily  and  write 
a  more  popular  article  if  he  dictated  to  a  typist 
instead  of  writing  out  the  stuff  in  his  own  manuscript. 
Dictating  made  his  sentences  more  copious  and  open, 
and  the  effect  of  the  young  lady's  by  no  means  acquis- 
cent  back  was  to  make  him  far  more  explicit  than  he 
tended  to  be  pen  in  hand.  With  a  pen  and  alone  he 
felt  the  boredom  of  the  job  unendurably,  and,  to  be 
through  with  it,  became  more  and  more  terse,  allusive, 
and  compactly  technical,  after  the  style  of  his  origi- 
nal papers.  One  or  two  articles  by  him  were  ac- 
cepted and  published  by  the  monthly  magazines,  but 
as  he  took  what  the  editors  sent  him,  he  did  not  find 
this  led  to  any  excessive  opulence.  .  .  . 

But  his  heart  was  very  much  with  Marjorie 
through  all  this  time.  Hitherto  he  had  taken  her 


266  MARRIAGE 

health  and  vigour  and  companionship  for  granted, 
and  it  changed  his  attitudes  profoundly  to  find  her 
now  an  ailing  thing,  making  an  invincible  appeal  for 
restraint  and  consideration  and  help.  She  changed 
marvellously,  she  gained  a  new  dignity,  and  her  com- 
plexion took  upon  itself  a  fresh,  soft  beauty.  He 
would  spend  three  or  four  days  out  of  a  week  at  the 
cottage,  and  long  hours  of  that  would  be  at  her  side, 
paper  and  notes  of  some  forthcoming  lecture  at  hand 
neglected,  talking  to  her  consolingly  and  dreamingly. 
His  thoughts  were  full  of  ideas  about  education;  he 
was  obsessed,  as  are  most  intelligent  young  parents  of 
the  modern  type,  by  the  enormous  possibilities  of  hu- 
man improvement  that  might  be  achieved — if  only 
one  could  begin  with  a  baby  from  the  outset,  on  the 
best  lines,  with  the  best  methods,  training  and  pre- 
paring it — presumably  for  a  cleaned  and  chastened 
world.  Indeed  he  made  all  the  usual  discoveries  of 
intelligent  modern  young  parents  very  rapidly,  fully 
and  completely,  and  overlooked  most  of  those  prac- 
tical difficulties  that  finally  reduce  them  to  human 
dimensions  again  in  quite  the  normal  fashion. 

"  I  sit  and  muse  sometimes  when  I  ought  to  be 
computing,"  he  said.  "  Old  Durgan  watches  me  and 
grunts.  But  think,  if  we  take  reasonable  care,  watch 
its  phases,  stand  ready  with  a  kindergarten  toy  di- 
rectly it  stretches  out  its  hand — think  what  we  can 
make  of  it!"  .  .  . 

"  We  will  make  it  the  most  wonderful  child  in  the 
world,"  said  Marjorie.  "Indeed!  what  else  can  it 
be?" 

"  Your  eyes,"  said  Trafford,  "  and  my  hands." 

«  A  girl." 

"  A  boy." 

He  kissed  her  white  and  passive  wrist. 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   267 

§7 

The  child  was  born  a  little  before  expectation  at 
the  cottage  throughout  a  long  summer's  night  and 
day  in  early  September.  Its  coming  into  the  world 
was  a  long  and  painful  struggle;  the  general  practi- 
tioner who  had  seemed  two  days  before  a  competent 
and  worthy  person  enough,  revealed  himself  as  hesi- 
tating, old-fashioned,  and  ill-equipped.  He  had  a 
lingering  theological  objection  to  the  use  of  chloro- 
form, and  the  nurse  from  London  sulked  under  his 
directions  and  came  and  discussed  his  methods  scorn- 
fully with  Trafford.  From  sundown  until  daylight 
Trafford  chafed  in  the  little  sitting-room  and  tried 
to  sleep,  and  hovered  listening  at  the  foot  of  the  nar- 
row staircase  to  the  room  above.  He  lived  through 
interminable  hours  of  moaning  and  suspense.  .  .  . 

The  dawn  and  sunrise  came  with  a  quality  of 
beautiful  horror.  For  years  afterwards  that  memory 
stood  out  among  other  memories  as  something  pecu- 
liarly strange  and  dreadful.  Day  followed  an  inter- 
minable night  and  broke  slowly.  Things  crept  out  of 
darkness,  awoke  as  it  were  out  of  mysteries  and 
reclothed  themselves  in  unsubstantial  shadows  and 
faint-hued  forms.  All  through  that  slow  infiltration 
of  the  world  with  light  and  then  with  colour,  the 
universe  it  seemed  was  moaning  and  endeavouring, 
and  a  weak  and  terrible  struggle  went  on  and  kept  on 
in  that  forbidden  room  whose  windows  opened  upon 
the  lightening  world,  dying  to  a  sobbing  silence,  ris- 
ing again  to  agonizing  cries,  fluctuating,  a  perpetual 
obstinate  failure  to  achieve  a  tormenting  end.  He 
went  out,  and  behold  the  sky  was  a  wonder  of  pink 
flushed  level  clouds  and  golden  hope,  and  nearly 
every  star  except  the  morning  star  had  gone,  the 
supine  moon  was  pale  and  half-dissolved  in  blue,  and 


268  MARRIAGE 

the  grass  which  had  been  grey  and  wet,  was  green 
again,  and  the  bushes  and  trees  were  green.  He 
returned  and  hovered  in  the  passage,  washed  his  face, 
listened  outside  the  door  for  age-long  moments,  and 
then  went  out  again  to  listen  under  the  window.  .  .  . 

He  went  to  his  room  and  shaved,  sat  for  a  long 
time  thinking,  and  then  suddenly  knelt  by  his  bed  and 
prayed.  He  had  never  prayed  before  in  all  his 
life.  .  .  . 

He  returned  to  the  garden,  and  there  neglected 
and  wet  with  dew  was  the  camp  chair  Marjorie  had 
sat  on  the  evening  before,  the  shawl  she  had  been 
[wearing,  the  novel  she  had  been  reading.  He  brought 
tthese  things  in  as  if  they  were  precious  treasures.  .  .  . 

Light  was  pouring  into  the  world  again  now.  He 
noticed  with  an  extreme  particularity  the  detailed 
dewy  delicacy  of  grass  and  twig,  the  silver  edges  to 
the  leaves  of  briar  and  nettle,  the  soft  clearness  of  the 
moss  on  bank  and  wall.  He  noted  the  woods  with 
the  first  warmth  of  autumn  tinting  their  green,  the 
clear,  calm  sky,  with  just  a  wisp  or  so  of  purple 
cloud  waning  to  a  luminous  pink  on  the  brightening 
east,  the  exquisite  freshness  of  the  air.  And  still 
through  the  open  window,  incessant,  unbearable, 
came  this  sound  of  Marjorie  moaning,  now  dying 
away,  now  reviving,  now  weakening  again.  .  .  . 

Was  she  dying?  Were  they  murdering  her?  It 
was  incredible  this  torture  could  go  on.  Somehow  it 
must  end.  Chiefly  he  wanted  to  go  in  and  kill  the 
doctor.  But  it  would  do  no  good  to  kill  the  doctor ! 

At  last  the  nurse  came  out,  looking  a  little  scared, 
to  ask  him  to  cycle  three  miles  away  and  borrow  some 
special  sort  of  needle  that  the  fool  of  a  doctor  had 
forgotten.  He  went,  outwardly  meek,  and  returning 
was  met  by  the  little  interested  servant,  very  alert  and 
excited  and  rather  superior — for  here  was  something 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   269 

no  man  can  do — with  the  news  that  he  had  a  beauti- 
ful little  daughter,  and  that  all  was  well  with 
Marjorie. 

He  said  "  Thank  God,  thank  God!"  several  times, 
and  then  went  out  into  the  kitchen  and  began  to  eat 
some  flabby  toast  and  drink  some  lukewarm  tea  he 
found  there.  He  was  horribly  fatigued.  "  Is  she 
all  right?"  he  asked  over  his  shoulder,  hearing  the 
doctor's  footsteps  on  the  stairs.  .  .  . 

They  were  very  pontifical  and  official  with  him. 

Presently  they  brought  out  a  strange,  wizened 
little  animal,  wailing  very  stoutly,  with  a  face  like  a 
very,  very  old  woman,  and  reddish  skin  and  hair — it 
had  quite  a  lot  of  ^wet  blackish  hair  of  an  incredible 
delicacy  of  texture.  It  kicked  with  a  stumpy  mon- 
key's legs  and  inturned  feet.  He  held  it:  his  heart 
went  OP*  to  it.  He  pitied  it  beyond  measure,  it  was 
so  weak  and  ugly.  He  was  astonished  and  distressed 
by  the  fact  of  its  extreme  endearing  ugliness.  He 
had  expected  something  strikingly  pretty.  It  clench- 
ed a  fist,  and  he  perceived  it  had  all  its  complement 
of  fingers  and  ridiculous,  pretentious  little  finger 
nails.  Inside  that  fist  it  squeezed  his  heart.  .  . 
He  did  not  want  to  give  it  back  to  them.  He  wanted 
to  protect  it.  He  felt  they  could  not  understand  it 
or  forgive,  as  he  could  forgive,  its  unjustifiable 
feebleness.  .  .  . 

Later,  for  just  a  little  while,  he  was  permitted  to 
see  Marjorie — Marjorie  so  spent,  so  unspeakably 
weary,  and  yet  so  reassuringly  vital  and  living,  so 
full  of  gentle  pride  and  gentler  courage  amidst  the 
litter  of  surgical  precaution,  that  the  tears  came 
streaming  down  his  face  and  he  sobbed  shamelessly  as 
he  kissed  her.  "  Little  daughter,"  she  whispered  and 
smiled — just  as  she  had  always  smiled — that  sweet. 


270  MARRIAGE 

dear  smile  of  hers ! — and  closed  her  eyes  and  said  no 
more.    .    .    . 

Afterwards  as  he  walked  up  and  down  the  garden 
he  remembered  their  former  dispute  and  thought  how 
characteristic  of  Marjorie  it  was  to  have  a  daughter 
in  spite  of  all  his  wishes. 

§  8 

For  weeks  and  weeks  this  astonishing  and  unpre- 
cedented being  filled  the  Traffords'  earth  and  sky. 
Very  speedily  its  minute  quaintness  passed,  and  it 
became  a  vigorous  delightful  baby  that  was,  as  the 
nurse  explained  repeatedly  and  very  explicitly,  not 
only  quite  exceptional  and  distinguished,  but  exactly 
everything  that  a  baby  should  be.  Its  weight  became 
of  supreme  importance;  there  was  a  splendid  week 
when  it  put  on  nine  ounces,  and  an  indifferent  one 
when  it  added  only  one.  And  then  came  a  terrible 
crisis.  It  was  ill ;  some  sort  of  infection  had  reached 
it,  an  infantile  cholera.  Its  temperature  mounted  to 
a  hundred  and  three  and  a  half.  It  became  a  flushed 
misery,  wailing  with  a  pathetic  feeble  voice.  Then  it 
ceased  to  wail.  Marjorie  became  white-lipped  and 
heavy-eyed  from  want  of  sleep,  and  it  seemed  to 
Trafford  that  perhaps  his  child  might  die.  It  seemed 
to  him  that  the  spirit  of  the  universe  must  be  a  mon- 
strous Caliban  since  children  had  to  die.  He 
went  for  a  long  walk  through  the  October  beech- 
woods,  under  a  windy  sky,  and  in  a  drift  of  falling 
leaves,  wondering  with  a  renewed  freshness  at  the 
haunting  futilities  of  life.  Life  was  not  futile — any- 
thing but  that,  but  futility  seemed  to  be  stalking  it, 
waiting  for  it.  ...  When  he  returned  the  child 
was  already  better,  and  in  a  few  days  it  was  well 
again — but  very  light  and  thin. 


THE  CHILD  OF  THE  AGES   271 

When  they  were  sure  of  its  safety,  Marjorie  and 
he  confessed  the  extremity  of  their  fears  to  one  an- 
other. They  had  not  dared  to  speak  before,  and 
even  now  they  spoke  in  undertones  of  the  shadow 
that  had  hovered  and  passed  over  the  dearest  thing 
in  their  lives. 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE  NEW  PHASE 

§  1 

IN  the  course  of  the  next  six  months  the  child  of  the 
ages  became  an  almost  ordinary  healthy  baby,  and 
Trafford  began  to  think  consecutively  about  his 
scientific  work  again — in  the  intervals  of  effort  of  a 
more  immediately  practical  sort. 

The  recall  of  molecular  physics  and  particularly 
of  the  internal  condition  of  colloids  to  something  like 
their  old  importance  in  his  life  was  greatly  acceler- 
ated by  the  fact  that  a  young  Oxford  don  named 
Behrens  was  showing  extraordinary  energy  in  what 
had  been  for  a  time  Trafford's  distinctive  and  undis- 
puted field.  Behrens  was  one  of  those  vividly  clever 
energetic  people  who  are  the  despair  of  originative 
men.  He  had  begun  as  Trafford's  pupil  and  sedulous 
ape ;  he  had  gone  on  to  work  that  imitated  Trafford's 
in  everything  except  its  continual  freshness,  and 
now  he  was  ransacking  every  scrap  of  suggestion  to 
be  found  in  Trafford's  work,  and  developing  it  with 
an  intensity  of  uninspired  intelligence  that  most 
marvellously  simulated  originality.  He  was  already 
being  noted  as  an  authority ;  sometimes  in  an  article 
his  name  would  be  quoted  and  Trafford's  omitted  in 
relation  to  Trafford's  ideas,  and  in  every  way  his 
emergence  and  the  manner  of  his  emergence  threaten- 
ed and  stimulated  his  model  and  master.  A  great 
effort  had  to  be  made.  Trafford  revived  the  droop- 
ing spirits  of  Durgan  by  a  renewed  punctuality  in 
the  laboratory.  He  began  to  stay  away  from  home 
at  night  and  work  late  again,  now,  However,  under 

272 


THE  NEW  PHASE  273 

no  imperative  inspiration,  but  simply  because  it  was 
only  by  such  an  invasion  of  the  evening  and  night 
that  it  would  be  possible  to  make  headway  against 
Behren's  unremitting  industry.  And  this  new  demand 
upon  Trafford's  already  strained  mental  and  ner- 
vous equipment  began  very  speedily  to  have  its  effect 
upon  his  domestic  life. 

It  is  only  in  romantic  fiction  that  a  man  can  work 
strenuously  to  the  limit  of  his  power  and  come  home 
to  be  sweet,  sunny  and  entertaining.  Trafford's  pre- 
occupation involved  a  certain  negligence  of  Marjorie, 
a  certain  indisposition  to  be  amused  or  interested  by 
trifling  things,  a  certain  irritability.  .  .  . 


And  now,  indeed,  the  Traffords  were  coming  to  the 
most  difficult  and  fatal  phase  in  marriage.  They  had 
had  that  taste  of  defiant  adventure  which  is  the 
crown  of  a  spirited  love  affair,  they  had  known  the 
sweetness  of  a  maiden  passion  for  a  maid,  and  they 
had  felt  all  those  rich  and  solemn  emotions,  those 
splendid  fears  and  terrible  hopes  that  weave  them- 
selves about  the  great  partnership  in  parentage. 
And  now,  so  far  as  sex  was  concerned,  there  might  be 
much  joy  and  delight  still,  but  no  more  wonder,  no 
fresh  discoveries  of  incredible  new  worlds  and  unsus- 
pected stars.  Love,  which  had  been  a  new  garden,  an 
unknown  land,  a  sunlit  sea  to  launch  upon,  was  now  a 
rich  treasure-house  of  memories.  And  memories,  al- 
though they  afford  a  perpetually  increasing  enrich- 
ment to  emotion,  are  not  sufficient  in  themselves  for 
the  daily  needs  of  life. 

For  this,  indeed,  is  the  truth  of  passionate  love, 
that  it  works  outs  its  purpose  and  comes  to  an  end. 
A  day  arrives  in  every  marriage  when  the  lovers  must 


274  MARRIAGE 

face  each  other,  disillusioned,  stripped  of  the  last 
shred  of  excitement — undisguisedly  themselves.  And 
our  two  were  married;  they  had  bound  themselves 
together  under  a  penalty  of  scandalous  disgrace,  to 
take  the  life-long  consequences  of  their  passionate 
association. 

It  was  upon  Trafford  that  this  exhaustion  of  the 
sustaining  magic  of  love  pressed  most  severely,  be- 
cause it  was  he  who  had  made  the  greatest  adapta- 
tions to  the  exigencies  of  their  union.  He  had 
crippled,  he  perceived  more  and  more  clearly,  the 
research  work  upon  which  his  whole  being  had  once 
been  set,  and  his  hours  were  full  of  tiresome  and 
trivial  duties  and  his  mind  engaged  and  worried  by 
growing  financial  anxieties.  He  had  made  these 
abandonments  in  a  phase  of  exalted  passion  for  the 
one  woman  in  the  world  and  her  unprecedented  child, 
and  now  he  saw,  in  spite  of  all  his  desire  not  to  see, 
that  she  was  just  a  weak  human  being  among  human 
beings,  and  neither  she  nor  little  Margharita  so  very 
marvellous. 

But  while  Marjorie  shrank  to  the  dimensions  of 
reality,  research  remained  still  a  luminous  and  com- 
manding dream.  In  love  one  fails  or  one  wins  home, 
but  the  lure  of  research  is  for  ever  beyond  the  hills, 
every  victory  is  a  new  desire.  Science  has  inex- 
haustibly fresh  worlds  to  conquer.  .  .  . 

He  was  beginning  now  to  realize  the  dilemma  of 
his  life,  the  reality  of  the  opposition  between  Mar- 
jorie and  child  and  home  on  the  one  hand  and  on  the 
other  this  big  wider  thing,  this  remoter,  severer 
demand  upon  his  being.  He  had  long  perceived  these 
were  distinct  and  different  things,  but  now  it  appear- 
ed more  and  more  inevitable  that  they  should  be 
antagonistic  and  mutually  disregarded  things.  Each 
claimed  him  altogether,  it  seemed,  and  suffered  eom- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  275 

promise  impatiently.  And  this  is  where  the  particu- 
lar stress  of  his  situation  came  in.  Hitherto  he  had 
believed  that  nothing  of  any  importance  was  secret 
or  inexplicable  between  himself  and  Marjorie.  His 
ideal  of  his  relationship  had  assumed  a  complete 
sympathy  of  feeling,  an  almost  instinctive  identity  of 
outlook.  And  now  it  was  manifest  they  were  living 
in  a  state  of  inadequate  understanding,  that  she 
knew  only  in  the  most  general  and  opaque  forms,  the 
things  that  interested  him  so  profoundly,  and  had 
but  the  most  superficial  interest  in  his  impassioned 
curiosities.  And  missing  as  she  did  the  strength  of 
his  intellectual  purpose  she  missed  too,  she  had  no 
inkling  of,  the  way  in  which  her  careless  expansive- 
ness  pressed  upon  him.  She  was  unaware  that  she 
was  destroying  an  essential  thing  in  his  life. 

He  could  not  tell  how  far  this  antagonism  was 
due  to  inalterable  discords  of  character,  how  far  it 
might  not  be  an  ineradicable  sex  difference,  a  neces- 
sary aspect  of  marriage.  The  talk  of  old  Sir  Rod- 
erick Dover  at  the  Winton  Club  germinated  in  his 
mind,  a  branching  and  permeating  suggestion.  And 
then  would  come  a  phase  of  keen  sympathy  with 
Marjorie;  she  would  say  brilliant  and  penetrating 
things,  display  a  swift  cleverness  that  drove  all  these 
intimations  of  incurable  divergence  clean  out  of  his 
head  again.  Then  he  would  find  explanations  in  the 
differences  between  his  and  Marjorie's  training  and 
early  associations.  He  perceived  his  own  upbring- 
ing had  had  a  steadfastness  and  consistency  that  had 
been  altogether  lacking  in  hers.  He  had  had  the 
rare  advantage  of  perfect  honesty  in  the  teaching 
and  tradition  of  his  home.  There  had  never  been 
any  shams  or  sentimentalities  for  him  to  find  out  and 
abandon.  From  boyhood  his  mother's  hand  had 
pointed  steadily  to  the  search  for  truth  as  the 


276  MARRIAGE 

supreme  ennobling  fact  in  life.  She  had  never 
preached  this  to  him,  never  delivered  discourses  upon 
his  father's  virtues,  but  all  her  conversation  and  life 
was  saturated  with  this  idea.  Compared  with  this 
atmosphere  of  high  and  sustained  direction,  the 
intellectual  and  moral  quality  of  the  Popes,  he  saw, 
was  the  quality  of  an  agitated  rag  bag.  They  had 
thought  nothing  out,  joined  nothing  together,  they 
seemed  to  believe  everything  and  nothing,  they  were 
neither  religious  nor  irreligious,  neither  moral  nor 
adventurous.  In  the  place  of  a  religion,  and  tainting 
their  entire  atmosphere,  they  had  the  decaying  re- 
mains of  a  dead  Anglicanism;  it  was  clear  they  did 
not  believe  in  its  creed,  and  as  clear  that  they  did 
not  want  to  get  rid  of  it ;  it  afforded  them  no  guid- 
ance, but  only  vague  pretensions,  and  the  dismal 
exercises  of  Silas  Root  flourished  in  its  shadows,  a 
fungus,  a  post-mortem  activity  of  the  soul.  None  of 
them  had  any  idea  of  what  they  were  for  or  what 
their  lives  as  a  whole  might  mean ;  they  had  no  stand- 
ards, but  only  instincts  and  an  instinctive  fear  of 
instincts ;  Pope  wanted  to  be  tremendously  respected 
and  complimented  by  everybody  and  get  six  per  cent, 
for  his  money;  Mrs.  Pope  wanted  things  to  go 
smoothly;  the  young  people  had  a  general  indisposi- 
tion to  do  anything  that  might  "  look  bad,"  and 
otherwise  "  have  a  good  time."  But  neither  Mar- 
jorie  nor  any  of  them  had  any  test  for  a  good  time, 
and  so  they  fluctuated  in  their  conceptions  of  what 
they  wanted  from  day  to  day.  Now  it  was  Ples- 
singtonian  standards,  now  Carmel  standards,  now 
the  standards  of  Agatha  Alimony ;  now  it  was  a  stim- 
ulating novel,  now  a  gleam  of  aesthetic  imaginative- 
ness come,  Heaven  knows  whence,  that  dominated  he* 
mood.  He  was  beginning  to  understand  all  this  at 
last,  and  to  see  the  need  of  coherence  in  Marjorie's 
mood. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  277 

,lr. 

He  realized  the  unfairness  of  keeping  his  thoughts 
to  himself,  the  need  of  putting  his  case  before  her, 
and  making  her  realize  their  fatal  and  widening 
divergence.  He  wanted  to  infect  her  with  his  scien- 
tific passion,  to  give  her  his  sense  of  the  gravity  of 
their  practical  difficulties.  He  would  sit  amidst  his 
neglected  work  in  his  laboratory  framing  explana- 
tory phrases.  He  would  prepare  the  most  lucid  and 
complete  statements,  and  go  about  with  these  in  his 
mind  for  days  waiting  for  an  opportunity  of  saying 
what  he  felt  so  urgently  had  to  be  said. 

But  the  things  that  seemed  so  luminous  and  ef- 
fective in  the  laboratory  had  a  curious  way  of  fading 
and  shrinking  beside  the  bright  colours  of  Marjorie's 
Bokhara  hangings,  in  the  presence  of  little  Mar- 
gharita  pink  and  warm  and  entertaining  in  her  bath, 
or  amidst  the  fluttering  rustle  of  the  afternoon  tea- 
parties  that  were  now  becoming  frequent  in  his 
house.  And  when  he  was  alone  with  her  he  discov- 
ered they  didn't  talk  now  any  more — except  in 
terms  of  a  constrained  and  formal  affection. 

What  had  happened  to  them?  What  was  the 
matter  between  himself  and  Marjorie  that  he  could- 
n't even  intimate  his  sense  of  their  divergence?  He 
would  have  liked  to  discuss  the  whole  thing  with  his 
mother,  but  somehow  that  seemed  disloyal  to  Mar- 
jorie. .  .  . 

One  day  they  quarrelled. 

He  came  in  about  six  in  the  afternoon,  jaded 
from  the  delivery  of  a  suburban  lecture,  and  the 
consequent  tedium  of  suburban  travel,  and  discover- 
ed Marjorie  examining  the  effect  of  a  new  picture 
which  had  replaced  the  German  print  of  sunlit  waves 
over  the  dining-room  mantelpiece.  It  was  a  painting 
in  the  post-impressionist  manner,  and  it  had  arrived 
after  the  close  of  the  exhibition  in  Weldon  Street,  at 


278  MARRIAGE 

which  Marjorie  had  bought  it.  She  had  bought  it 
in  obedience  to  a  sudden  impulse,  and  its  imminence 
had  long  weighed  upon  her  conscience.  She  had 
gone  to  the  show  with  Sydney  Flor  and  old  Mrs. 
Flor,  Sydney's  mother,  and  a  kind  of  excitement  had 
come  upon  them  at  the  idea  of  possessing  this  par- 
ticular picture.  Mrs.  Flor  had  already  bought  three 
Herbins,  and  her  daughter  wanted  to  dissuade  her 
from  more.  "  But  they're  so  delightful,"  said  Mrs. 
Flor.  "  You're  overrunning  your  allowance,"  said 
Sydney.  Disputing  the  point,  they  made  inquiries 
for  the  price,  and  learnt  that  this  bright  epigram  in 
colour  was  going  begging — was  even  offered  at  a 
reduction  from  the  catalogue  price.  A  reduced 
price  always  had  a  strong  appeal  nowadays  to  Mar- 
jorie's  mind.  "  If  you  don't  get  it,"  she  said  abrupt- 
ly, "  I  shall." 

The  transition  from  that  attitude  to  ownership 
was  amazingly  rapid.  Then  nothing  remained  but 
to  wait  for  the  picture.  She  had  dreaded  a  mistake, 
a  blundering  discord,  but  now  with  the  thing  hung 
she  could  see  her  quick  eye  had  not  betrayed  her.  It 
was  a  mass  of  reds,  browns,  purples,  and  vivid  greens 
and  greys;  an  effect  of  roof  and  brick  house  facing 
upon  a  Dutch  canal,  and  it  lit  up  the  room  and  was 
echoed  and  reflected  by  all  the  rest  of  her  courageous 
colour  scheme,  like  a  coal-fire  amidst  mahogany  and 
metal.  It  justified  itself  to  her  completely,  and  she 
faced  her  husband  with  a  certain  confidence. 

"Hullo!"  he  cried. 

"  A  new  picture,"  she  said.    "  JVhat  do  you  think 


of  it?" 


"What  is  it?" 

"  A  town  or  something — never  mind.     Look  at 
the  colour.    It  heartens  everything." 


THE  NEW  PHASE  270 

Trafford  looked  at  the  painting  with  a  reluctant 
admiration. 

"  It's  brilliant — and  impudent.  He's  an  artist — 
whoever  he  is.  He  hits  the  thing.  But — I  say — how 
did  you  get  it?" 

« I  bought  it." 

"  Bought  it !    Good  Lord !    How  much?" 

"  Oh!  ten  guineas,"  said  Marjorie,  with  an  affec- 
tation of  ease ;  "  it  will  be  worth  thirty  in  ten  years' 
time." 

Traff ord's  reply  was  to  repeat :  "  Ten  guineas !" 

Their  eyes  met,  and  there  was  singularly  little 
tenderness  in  their  eyes. 

"  It  was  priced  at  thirteen,"  said  Marjorie,  end- 
ing a  pause,  and  with  a  sinking  heart. 

Trafford  had  left  her  side.  He  walked  to  the 
window  and  sat  down  in  a  chair. 

"  I  think  this  is  too  much,"  he  said,  and  his  voice 
had  disagreeable  notes  in  it  she  had  never  heard 
before.  "  I  have  just  been  earning  two  guineas  at 
Croydon,  of  all  places,  administering  comminuted 
science  to  fools — and  here  I  find — this  exploit!  Ten 
guineas'  worth  of  picture.  To  say  we  can't  afford  it 
is  just  to  waste  a  mild  expression.  It's — mad  extrav- 
agance. It's  waste  of  money — it's — oh! — monstrous 
disloyalty.  Disloyalty !"  He  stared  resentful  at  the 
cheerful,  unhesitating  daubs  of  the  picture  for  a 
moment.  Its  affected  carelessness  goaded  him  to 
fresh  words.  He  spoke  in  a  tone  of  absolute  hostility. 
"  I  think  this  winds  me  up  to  something,"  he  said. 
"  You'll  have  to  give  up  your  cheque-book,  Mar- 
jorie." 

"  Give  up  my  cheque-book !" 

He  looked  up  at  her  and  nodded.  There  was  a 
warm  flush  in  her  cheeks,  her  lips  panted  apart,  and 
tears  of  disappointment  and  vexation  were  shining 


280  MARRIAGE 

beautifully  in  her  eyes.  She  mingled  the  quality  of  an 
indignant  woman  with  the  distress  and  unreasonable 
resentment  of  a  child. 

"  Because  I've  bought  this  picture?" 

"  Can  we  go  on  like  this  ?"  he  asked,  and  felt  how 
miserably  he  had  bungled  in  opening  this  question 
that  had  been  in  his  mind  so  long. 

"  But  it's  beautiful!"  she  said. 

He  disregarded  that.  He  felt  now  that  he  had  to 
go  on  with  these  long-premeditated  expostulations. 
He  was  tired  and  dusty  from  his  third-class  carriage, 
his  spirit  was  tired  and  dusty,  and  he  said  what  he 
had  to  say  without  either  breadth  or  power,  an  un- 
dignified statement  of  personal  grievances,  a  mere 
complaint  of  the  burthen  of  work  that  falls  upon  a 
man.  That  she  missed  the  high  aim  in  him,  and  all 
sense  of  the  greatness  they  were  losing  had  vanished 
from  his  thoughts.  He  had  too  heavy  a  share  of 
the  common  burthen,  and  she  pressed  upon  him  un- 
thinkingly ;  that  was  all  he  could  say.  He  girded  at 
her  with  a  bitter  and  loveless  truth;  it  was  none  the 
less  cruel  that  in  her  heart  she  knew  these  things  he 
said  were  true.  But  he  went  beyond  justice — as 
every  quarrelling  human  being  does;  he  called  the 
things  she  had  bought  and  the  harmonies  she  had 
created,  "  this  litter  and  rubbish  for  which  I  am 
wasting  my  life."  That  stabbed  into  her  pride 
acutely  and  deeply.  She  knew  anyhow  that  it  wasn't 
so  simple  and  crude  as  that.  It  was  not  mere  witless- 
ness  she  contributed  to  their  trouble.  She  tried  to 
indicate  her  sense  of  that.  But  she  had  no  power  of 
ordered  reasoning,  she  made  futile  interruptions,  she 
was  inexpressive  of  anything  but  emotion,  she  felt 
gagged  against  his  flow  of  indignant,  hostile  words. 
They  blistered  her. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  281 

Suddenly  she  went  to  her  little  desk  in  the  corner, 
unlocked  it  with  trembling  hands,  snatched  her 
cheque-book  out  of  a  heap  of  still  unsettled  bills,  and 
having  locked  that  anti-climax  safe  away  again, 
turned  upon  him.  "  Here  it  is,"  she  said,  and  stood 
poised  for  a  moment.  Then  she  flung  down  the  little 
narrow  grey  cover — nearly  empty,  it  was,  of  cheques, 
on  the  floor  before  him. 

"  Take  it,"  she  cried,  "  take  it.  I  never  asked 
you  to  give  it  me." 

A  memory  of  Orta  and  its  reeds  and  sunshine  and 
love  rose  like  a  luminous  mist  between  them.  .  .  . 

She  ran  weeping  from  the  room. 

He  leapt  to  his  feet  as  the  door  closed.  "  Mar- 
jorie!"  he  cried. 

But  she  did  not  hear  him.    .    .    :.: 

§3 

The  disillusionment  about  marriage  which  had 
discovered  Trafford  a  thwarted,  overworked,  and 
worried  man,  had  revealed  Marjorie  with  time  on  her 
hands,  superabundant  imaginative  energy,  and  no 
clear  intimation  of  any  occupation.  With  them,  as 
with  thousands  of  young  couples  in  London  to-day, 
the  breadwinner  was  overworked,  and  the  spending 
partner's  duty  was  chiefly  the  negative  one  of  not 
spending.  You  cannot  consume  your  energies  merely 
in  not  spending  money.  Do  what  she  could,  Mar- 
jorie could  not  contrive  to  make  house  and  child  fill 
the  waking  hours.  She  was  far  too  active  and  irri- 
table a  being  to  be  beneficial  company  all  day  for 
genial,  bubble-blowing  little  Margharita;  she  could 
play  with  that  young  lady  and  lead  her  into  ecstasies 
of  excitement  and  delight,  and  she  could  see  with  an 
almost  instinctive  certainty  when  anything  was  going 


282  MARRIAGE 

wrong;  but  for  the  rest  that  little  life  reposed  far 
more  beneficially  upon  the  passive  acquiescence  of 
May,  her  pink  and  wholesome  nurse.  And  the  house- 
hold generally  was  in  the  hands  of  a  trustworthy 
cook-general,  who  maintained  a  tolerable  routine. 
Marjorie  did  not  dare  to  have  an  idea  about  food  or 
domestic  arrangements;  if  she  touched  that  routine 
so  much  as  with  her  little  finger  it  sent  up  the  bills. 
She  could  knock  off  butcher  and  greengrocer  and  do 
every  scrap  of  household  work  that  she  could  touch, 
in  a  couple  of  hours  a  day.  She  tried  to  find  some 
work  to  fill  her  leisure/;  she  suggested  to  Trafford 
that  she  might  help  him  by  writing  up  his  Science 
Notes  from  rough  pencil  memoranda,  but  when  it 
became  clear  that  the  first  step  to  her  doing  this 
would  be  the  purchase  of  a  Remington  typewriter 
and  a  special  low  table  to  carry  it,  he  became  bluntly 
discouraging.  She  thought  of  literary  work,  and  sat 
down  one  day  to  write  a  short!  story  and  earn 
guineas,  and  was  surprised  to  find  that  she  knew 
nothing  of  any  sort  of  human  being  about  whom  she 
could  invent  a  story.  She  tried  a  cheap  subscription 
at  Mudie's  and  novels,  and  they  filled  her  with  a 
thirst  for  events ;  she  tried  needlework,  and  found  her 
best  efforts  aesthetically  feeble  and  despicable,  and 
that  her  mind  prowled  above  the  silks  and  colours 
like  a  hungry  wolf. 

The  early  afternoons  were  the  worst  time,  from 
two  to  four,  before  calling  began.  The  devil  was 
given  great  power  over  Marjorie's  early  afternoon. 
She  could  even  envy  her  former  home  life  then,  and 
reflect  that  there,  at  any  rate,  one  had  a  chance  of  a 
game  or  a  quarrel  with  Daffy  or  Syd  or  Rom  or 
Theodore.  She  would  pull  herself  together  and  go 
out  for  a  walk,  and  whichever  way  she  went  there 
were  shops  and  shops  and  shops,  a  glittering  array 


THE  NEW  PHASE  283 

of  tempting  opportunities  for  spending  money. 
Sometimes  she  would  give  way  to  spending  exactly 
as  a  struggling  drunkard  decides  to  tipple.  She 
would  fix  on  some  object,  some  object  trivial  and1  a 
little  rare  and  not  too  costly,  as  being  needed — when 
she  knew  perfectly  well  it  wasn't  needed — and  choose 
the  remotest  shops  and  display  the  exactest  insist- 
ence upon  her  requirements.  Sometimes  she  would 
get  home  from  these  raids  without  buying  at  all. 
After  four  the  worst  of  the  day  was  over;  one  could 
call  on  people  or  people  might  telephone  and  follow 
up  with  a  call;  and  there  was  a  chance  of  Trafford 
coming  home.  .  .  . 

One  day  at  the  Carmels'  she  found  herself  engaged 
in  a  vigorous  flirtation  with  young  Carmel.  She 
hadn't  noticed  it  coming  on,  but  there  she  was  in  a 
windowseat  talking  quite  closely  to  him.  He  said  he 
was  writing  a  play,  a  wonderful  passionate  play 
about  St.  Francis,  and  only  she  could  inspire  and 
advise  him.  Wasn't  there  some  afternoon  in  the  week 
when  she  sat  and  sewed,  so  that  he  might  come  and 
sit  by  her  and  read  to  her  and  talk  to  her?  He  made 
his  request  with  a  certain  confidence,  but  it  filled  her 
with  a  righteous  panic;  she  pulled  him  up  with  an 
abruptness  that  was  almost  inartistic.  On  her  way 
home  she  was  acutely  ashamed  of  herself;  this  was 
the  first  time  she  had  let  any  man  but  Trafford  think 
he  might  be  interesting  to  her,  but  once  or  twice  on 
former  occasions  she  had  been  on  the  verge  of  such 
provocative  intimations.  This  sort  of  thing  anyhow 
mustn't  happen. 

But  if  she  didn't  dress  with  any  distinction — 
because  of  the  cost — and  didn't  flirt  and  trail  men  in 
her  wake,  what  was  she  to  do  at  the  afternoon  gath- 
erings which  were  now  her  chief  form  of  social  con- 
tact? What  was  going  to  bring  people  to  her  house? 


284.  MARRIAGE 

She  knew  that  she  was  more  than  ordinarily  beauti- 
ful and  that  she  could  talk  well,  but  that  does  not 
count  for  much  if  you  are  rather  dowdy,  and  quite 
uneventfully  virtuous. 

It  became  the  refrain  of  all  her  thoughts  that  she 
must  find  something  to  do. 

There  remained  "Movements." 

She  might  take  up  a  movement.  She  was  a  rather 
exceptionally  good  public  speaker.  Only  her  elope- 
ment and  marriage  had  prevented  her  being  president 
of  her  college  Debating  Society.  If  she  devoted  her- 
self to  some  movement  she  would  be  free  to  devise  an 
ostentatiously  simple  dress  for  herself  and  stick  to  it, 
and  she  would  be  able  to  give  her  little  house  a  signi- 
ficance of  her  own,  and  present  herself  publicly 
against  what  is  perhaps  quite  the  best  of  all  back- 
grounds for  a  good-looking,  clear-voiced,  self-pos- 
sessed woman,  a  platform.  Yes;  she  had  to  go  in 
for  a  Movement. 

She  reviewed  the  chief  contemporary  Movements 
much  as  she  might  have  turned  over  dress  fabrics  in  a 
draper's  shop,  weighing  the  advantages  and  disad- 
vantages of  each.  .  .  . 

London,  of  course,  is  always  full  of  Movements. 
Essentially  they  are  absorbents  of  superfluous  femi- 
nine energy.  They  have  a  common  flavour  of  pro- 
gress and  revolutionary  purpose,  and  common  fea- 
tures in  abundant  meetings,  officials,  and  organization 
generally.  Few  are  expensive,  and  still  fewer  pro- 
duce any  tangible  results  in  the  world.  They  direct 
themselves  at  the  most  various  ends ;  the  Poor,  that 
favourite  butt,  either  as  a  whole  or  in  such  typical 
sections  as  the  indigent  invalid  or  the  indigent  aged, 
the  young,  public  health,  the  woman's  cause,  the 
prevention  of  animal  food,  anti-vivisection,  the  grat- 
uitous advertisement  of  Shakespear  (that  neglected 


THE  NEW  PHASE  285 

poet),  novel  but  genteel  modifications  of  medical  or 
religious  practice,  dress  reform,  the  politer  aspects 
of  socialism,  the  encouragement  of  aeronautics, 
universal  military  service,  garden  suburbs,  domestic 
arts,  proportional  representation,  duodecimal  arith- 
metic, and  the  liberation  of  the  drama.  They  range 
in  size  and  importance  from  campaigns  on  a  Ples- 
singtoniam  scale  to  sober  little  intellectual  Becking- 
ham  things  that  arrange  to  meet  half-yearly,  and 
die  quietly  before  the  second  assembly.  If  Heaven 
by  some  miracle  suddenly  gave  every  Movement  in 
London  all  it  professed  to  want,  our  world  would  be 
standing  on  its  head  and  everything  would  be 
extremely  unfamiliar  and  disconcerting.  But,  as 
Mr.  Roosevelt  once  remarked,  the  justifying  thing 
about  life  is  the  effort  and  not  the  goal,  and  few 
Movements  involve  any  real  and  impassioned  strug- 
gle to  get  to  the  ostensible  object.  They  exist  as  an 
occupation ;  they  exercise  the  intellectual  and  moral 
activities  without  undue  disturbance  of  the  normal 
routines  of  life.  In  the  days  when  everybody  was 
bicycling  an  ingenious  mechanism  called  Hacker's 
Home  Bicycle  used  to  be  advertised.  Hacker's  Home 
Bicycle  was  a  stand  bearing  small  rubber  wheels  upon 
which  one  placed  one's  bicycle  (properly  equipped 
with  a  cyclometer)  in  such  a  way  that  it  could  be 
mounted  and  ridden  without  any  sensible  forward 
movement  whatever.  In  bad  weather,  or  when  the 
state  of  the  roads  made  cycling  abroad  disagreeable 
Hacker's  Home  Bicycle  could  be  placed  in  front  of 
an  open  window  and  ridden  furiously  for  any  length 
of  time.  Whenever  the  rider  tired,  he  could  descend 
— comfortably  at  home  again — and  examine  the 
cyclometer  to  see  how  far  he  had  been.  In  exactly 
the  same  way  the  ordinary  London  Movement  gives 
scope  for  the  restless  and  progressive  impulse  in 


286  MARRIAGE 

human  nature  without  the  risk  of  personal  entangle- 
ments or  any  inconvenient  disturbance  of  the  milieu. 
Marjorie  considered  the  Movements  about  her. 
She  surveyed  the  accessible  aspects  of  socialism,  but 
that  old  treasure-house  of  constructive  suggestion 
had  an  effect  like  a  rich  chateau  which  had  been 
stormed  and1  looted  by  a  mob.  For  a  time  the 
proposition  that  "  we  are  all  Socialists  nowadays  " 
had  prevailed.  The  blackened  and  discredited  frame 
remained,  the  contents  were  scattered;  Aunt  Pies- 
sington  had  a  few  pieces,  the  Tory  Democrats  had 
taken  freely,  the  Liberals  were  in  possession  of  a 
hastily  compiled  collection.  There  wasn't,  she  per- 
ceived, and  there  never  had  been  a  Socialist  Move- 
ment; the  socialist  idea  which  had  now  become  part 
of  the  general  consciousness,  had  always  been  too  big 
for  polite  domestication.  She  weighed  Aunt  Ples- 
sington,  too,  in  the  balance,  and  found  her  not  so 
much  wanting  indeed  as  excessive.  She  felt  that  a 
Movement  with  Aunt  Plessington  in  it  couldn't 
possibly  offer  even  elbow-room  for  anybody  else. 
Philanthropy  generally  she  shunned.  The  movements 
that  aim  at  getting  poor  people  into  rooms  and  shout- 
ing at  them  in  an  improving,  authoritative  way, 
aroused  an  instinctive  dislike  in  her.  Her  sense  of 
humour,  again,  would  not  let  her  patronize  Shakes- 
pear  or  the  stage,  or  raise  the  artistic  level  of  the 
country  by  means  of  green-dyed  deal,  and  the  in- 
fluence of  Trafford  on  her  mind  debarred  her  from 
attempting  the  physical  and  moral  regeneration  of 
humanity  by  means  of  beans  and  nut  butter.  It  was 
indeed  rather  by  the  elimination  of  competing  move- 
ments than  by  any  positive  preference  that  she 
found  herself  declining  at  last  towards  Agatha 
Alimony's  section  of  the  suffrage  movement.  .  .  . 
It  was  one  of  the  less  militant  sections,  but  it  held 


THE  NEW  PHASE  287 

more  meetings  and  passed  more  resolutions  than  any 
two  others. 

One  day  Trafford,  returning  from  an  afternoon 
of  forced  and  disappointing  work  in  his  laboratory, 
— his  mind  had  been  steadfastly  sluggish  and  inelas- 
tic,— discovered  Marjorie's  dining  room  crowded 
with  hats  and  all  the  rustle  and  colour  which  plays 
so  large  a  part  in  constituting  contemporary  femin- 
ine personality.  Buzard,  the  feminist  writer,  and  a 
young  man  just  down  from  Cambridge  who  had 
written  a  decadent  poem,  were  the  only  men  present. 
The  chairs  were  arranged  meeting-fashion,  but  a 
little  irregularly  to  suggest  informality;  the  post- 
impressionist  picture  was  a  rosy  benediction  on  the 
gathering,  and  at  a  table  in  the  window  sat  Mrs. 
Pope  in  the  chair,  looking  quietly  tactful  in  an  un- 
usually becoming  bonnet,  supported  by  her  daugh- 
ter and  Agatha  Alimony.  Marjorie  was  in  a  simple 
gown  of  blueish-grey,  hatless  amidst  a  froth  of  foolish 
bows  and  feathers,  and  she  looked  not  only  beautiful 
and  dignified  but  deliberately  and  conscientiously 
patient  until  she  perceived  the  new  arrival.  Then  he 
noted  she  was  a  little  concerned  for  him,  and  made 
some  futile  sign  he  did  not  comprehend.  The  meet- 
ing was  debating  the  behaviour  of  women  at  the 
approaching  census,  and  a  small,  earnest,  pale-faced 
lady  with  glasses  was  standing  against  the  fireplace 
with  a  crumpled  envelope  covered  with  pencil  notes 
in  her  hand,  and  making  a  speech.  Trafford  wanted 
his  tea  badly,  but  he  had  not  the  wit  to  realize  that 
his  study  had  been  converted  into  a  refreshment 
room  for  the  occasion ;  he  hesitated,  and  seated  him- 
self near  the  doorway,  and  so  he  was  caught;  he 
couldn't,  he  felt,  get  away  and  seem  to  slight  a 
woman  who  was  giving  herself  the  pains  of  addressing 
him. 


288  MARRIAGE 

The  small  lady  in  glasses  was  giving  a  fancy  pic- 
ture of  the  mind  of  Mr.  Asquith  and  its  attitude  to 
the  suffrage  movement,  and  telling  with  a  sort  of 
inspired  intimacy  just  how  Mr.  Asquith  had  hoped  to 
"  bully  women  down,"  and  just  how  their  various 
attempts  to  bring  home  to  him  the  eminent  reason- 
ableness of  their  sex  by  breaking  his  windows,  inter- 
rupting his  meetings,  booing  at  him  in  the  streets 
and  threatening  his  life,  had  time  after  time  baffled 
this  arrogant  hope.  There  had  been  many  signs 
lately  that  Mr.  Asquith's  heart  was  failing  him. 
Now  here  was  a  new  thing  to  fill  him  with  despair. 
When  Mr.  Asquith  learnt  that  women  refused  to  be 
counted  in  the  census,  then  at  least  she  was  convinced 
he  must  give  in.  When  he  gave  in  it  would  not  be 
long — she  had  her  information  upon  good  authority 
— before  they  got  the  Vote.  So  what  they  had  to  do 
was  not  to  be  counted  in  the  census.  That  was  their 
paramount  duty  at  the  present  time.  The  women  of 
England  had  to  say  quietly  but  firmly  to  the  census 
man  when  he  came  round :  "  No,  we  don't  count  in  an 
election,  and  we  won't  count  now.  Thank  you." 
No  one  could  force  a  woman  to  fill  in  a  census  paper 
she  didn't  want  to,  and  for  her  own  part,  said  the 
little  woman  with  the  glasses,  she'd  starve  first.  (Ap- 
plause.) For  her  own  part  she  was  a  householder 
with  a  census  paper  of  her  own,  and  across  that  she 
was  going  to  write  quite  plainly  and  simply  what  she 
thought  of  Mr.  Asquith.  Some  of  those  present 
wouldn't  have  census  papers  to  fill  up ;  they  would  be 
sent  to  the  man,  the  so-called  Head  of  the  House. 
But  the  W.S.P.U.  had  foreseen  that.  Each  house- 
holder had  to  write  down  the  particulars  of  the 
people  who  slept  in  his  house  on  Sunday  night,  or  who 
arrived  home  before  midday  on  Monday;  the  reply 
of  the  women  of  England  must  be  not  to  sleep  in  a 


THE  NEW  PHASE  289 

house  that  night  where  census  papers  were  properly 
filled,  and  not  to  go  home  until  the  following  after- 
noon. All  through  that  night  the  women  of  England 
must  be  abroad.  She  herself  was  prepared,  and  her 
house  would  be  ready.  There  would  be  coffee  and 
refreshments  enough  for  an  unlimited  number  of 
refugees,  there  would  be  twenty  or  thirty  sofas  and 
mattresses  and  piles  of  blankets  for  those  who  chose 
to  sleep  safe  from  all  counting.  In  every  quarter  of 
London  there  would  be  houses  of  refuge  like  hers. 
And  so  they  would  make  Mr.  Asquith's  census  fail, 
as  it  deserved  to  fail,  as  every  census  would  fail  until 
women  managed  these  affairs  in  a  sensible  way.  For 
she  supposed  they  were  all  agreed  that  only  women 
could  manage  these  things  in  a  sensible  way.  That 
was  her  contribution  to  this  great  and  important 
question.  (Applause,  amidst  which  the  small  lady 
with  the  glasses  resumed  her  seat.) 

Trafford  glanced  doorward,  but  before  he  could 
move  another  speaker  was  in  possession  of  the  room. 
This  was  a  very  young,  tall,  fair,  round-shouldered 
girl  who  held  herself  with  an  unnatural  rigidity,  fixed 
her  eyes  on  the  floor  just  in  front  of  the  chairwoman, 
and  spoke  with  knitted  brows  and  an  effect  of  ex- 
treme strain.  She  remarked  that  some  people  did 
not  approve  of  this  proposed  boycott  of  the  census. 
She  hung  silent  for  a  moment,  as  if  ransacking  her 
mind  for  something  mislaid,  and  then  proceeded  to 
remark  that  she  proposed  to  occupy  a  few  moments 
in  answering  that  objection — if  it  could  be  called  an 
objection.  They  said  that  spoiling  the  census  was 
an  illegitimate  extension  of  the  woman  movement. 
Well,  she  objected — she  objected  fiercely — to  every 
word  of  that  phrase.  Nothing  was  an  illegitimate 
extension  of  the  woman  movement.  Nothing  could 
be.  (Applause.)  That  was  the  very  principle  they 


290  MARRIAGE 

had  been  fighting  for  all  along.  So  that,  examined 
in  this  way,  this  so-called  objection  resolved  itself 
into  a  mere  question  begging  phrase.  Nothing  more. 
And  her  reply  therefore  to  those  who  made  it  was 
that  they  were  begging  the  question,  and  however 
well  that  might  do  for  men,  it  would  certainly  not 
do,  they  would  find,  for  women.  (Applause.)  For 
the  freshly  awakened  consciousness  of  women.  (Fur- 
ther applause.)  This  was  a  war  in  which  quarter 
was  neither  asked  nor  given ;  if  it  were  not  so  things 
might  be  different.  She  remained  silent  after  that 
for  the  space  of  twenty  seconds  perhaps,  and  then 
remarked  that  that  seemed  to  be  all  she  had  to  say, 
and  sat  down  amidst  loud  encouragement. 

Then  with  a  certain  dismay  Trafford  saw  his  wife 
upon  her  feet.  He  was  afraid  of  the  effect  upon  him- 
self of  what  she  was  going  to  say,  but  he  need  have 
had  no  reason  for  his  fear.  Marjorie  was  a  seasoned 
debater,  self-possessed,  with  a  voice  very  well  con- 
trolled and  a  complete  mastery  of  that  elaborate 
appearance  of  reasonableness  which  is  so  essential  to 
good  public  speaking.  She  could  speak  far  better 
than  she  could  talk.  And  she  startled  the  meeting  in 
her  opening  sentence  by  declaring  that  she  meant  to 
stay  at  home  on  the  census  night,  and  supply  her 
husband  with  every  scrap  of  information  he  hadn't 
got  already  that  might  be  needed  to  make  the  return 
an  entirely  perfect  return.  (Marked  absence  of  ap- 
plause.) 

She  proceeded  to  avow  her  passionate  interest  in 
the  feminist  movement  of  which  this  agitation  for  the 
vote  was  merely  the  symbol.  (A  voice:  "  No!")  No 
one  could  be  more  aware  of  the  falsity  of  woman's 
position  at  the  present  time  than  she  was — she  seemed 
to  be  speaking  right  across  the  room  to  Trafford — 
they  were  neither  pets  nor  partners,  but  something 


THE  NEW  PHASE  291 

between  the  two;  now  indulged  like  spoilt  children, 
now  blamed  like  defaulting  partners ;  constantly  pro- 
voked to  use  the  arts  of  their  sex,  constantly  mis- 
chievous because  of  that  provocation.  She  caught 
her  breath  and  stopped  for  a  moment,  as  if  she  had 
suddenly  remembered  the  meeting  intervening  between 
herself  and  Trafford.  No,  she  said,  there  was  no 
more  ardent  feminist  and  suffragist  than  herself  in 
the  room.  She  wanted  the  vote  and  everything  it 
implied  with  all  her  heart.  With  all  her  heart.  But 
every  way  to  get  a  thing  wasn't  the  right  way,  and 
she  felt  with  every  fibre  of  her  being  that  this  petu- 
lant hostility  to  the  census  was  a  wrong  way  and  an 
inconsistent  way,  and  likely  to  be  an  unsuccessful 
way — one  that  would  lose  them  the  sympathy  and 
help  of  just  that  class  of  men  they  should  look  to  for 
support,  the  cultivated  and  scientific  men.  (A  voice: 
"  Do  we  want  them?")  What  was  the  commonest 
charge  made  by  the  man  in  the  street  against  women  ? 
— that  they  were  unreasonable  and  unmanageable, 
that  it  was  their  way  to  get  things  by  crying  and 
making  an  irrelevant  fuss.  And  here  they  were,  as 
a  body,  doing  that  very  thing !  Let  them  think  what 
the  census  and  all  that  modern  organization  of  vital 
statistics  of  which  it  was  the  central  feature  stood 
for.  It  stood  for  order,  for  the  replacement  of 
guesses  and  emotional  generalization  by  a  clear 
knowledge  of  facts,  for  the  replacement  of  instinctive 
and  violent  methods,  by  which  women  had  everything 
to  lose  (a  voice:  "No!")  by  reason  and  knowledge 
and  self-restraint,  by  which  women  had  everything 
to  gain.  To  her  the  advancement  of  science,  the 
progress  of  civilization,  and  the  emancipation  of 
womanhood  were  nearly  synonymous  terms.  At  any 
rate,  they  were  different  phases  of  one  thing.  They 
were  different  aspects  of  one  wider  purpose.  When 


292  MARRIAGE 

they  struck  at  the  census,  she  felt,  they  struck  at 
themselves.  She  glanced  at  Trafford  as  if  she  would 
convince  him  that  this  was  the  real  voice  of  the  suf- 
frage movement,  and  sat  down  amidst  a  brief,  polite 
applause,  that  warmed  to  rapture  as  Agatha  Ali- 
mony, the  deep-voiced,  stirring  Agatha,  rose  to 
reply.^ 

Miss  Alimony,  who  was  wearing  an  enormous  hat 
with  three  nodding  ostrich  feathers,  a  purple  bow,  a 
gold  buckle  and  numerous  minor  ornaments  of  vari- 
ous origin  and  substance,  said  they  had  all  of  them 
listened  with  the  greatest  appreciation  and  sympathy 
to  the  speech  of  their  hostess.  Their  hostess  was  a 
newcomer  to  the  movement,  she  knew  she  might  say 
this  without  offence,  and  was  passing  through  a 
phase,  an  early  phase,  through  which  many  of  them 
had  passed.  This  was  the  phase  of  trying  to  take  a 
reasonable  view  of  an  unreasonable  situation.  (Ap- 
plause.) Their  hostess  had  spoken  of  science,  and 
no  doubt  science  was  a  great  thing;  but  there  was 
something  greater  than  science,  and  that  was  the 
ideal.  It  was  woman's  place  to  idealize.  Sooner  or 
later  their  hostess  would  discover,  as  they  had  all 
discovered,  that  it  was  not  to  science  but  the  ideal 
that  women  must  look  for  freedom.  Consider,  she 
said,  the  scientific  men  of  to-day.  Consider,  for  ex- 
ample, Sir  James  Crichton-Browne,  the  physiologist. 
Was  he  on  their  side?  On  the  contrary,  he  said  the 
most  unpleasant  things  about  them  on  every  occa- 
sion. He  went  out  of  his  way  to  say  them.  Or  con- 
sider Sir  Almroth  Wright,  did  he  speak  well  of 
women?  Or  Sir  Ray  Lankester,  the  biologist,  who 
was  the  chief  ornament  of  the  Anti-Suffrage  Society. 
Or  Sir  Roderick  Dover,  the  physicist,  who — forget- 
ting Madame  Curie,  a  far  more  celebrated  physicist 
than  himself,  she  ventured  to  say  (Applause.)  had 


THE  NEW  PHASE  293 

recently  gone  outside  his  province  altogether  to 
abuse  feminine  research.  There  were  your  scientific 
men.  Mrs.  Trafford  had  said  their  anti-census  cam- 
paign would  annoy  scientific  men;  well,  under  the 
circumstances,  she  wanted  to  annoy  scientific  men. 
(Applause.)  She  wanted  to  annoy  everybody.  Un- 
til women  got  the  vote  (loud  applause)  the  more 
annoying,  they  were  the  better.  When  the  whole 
world  was  impressed  by  the  idea  that  voteless  women 
were  an  intolerable  nuisance,  then  there  would  cease 
to  be  voteless  women.  (Enthusiasm.)  Mr.  Asquith 
had  said — 

And  so  on  for  quite  a  long  time.    .    .    . 

Buzard  rose  out  of  waves  of  subsiding  emotion. 
Buzard  was  a  slender,  long-necked,  stalk-shaped  man 
with  gilt  glasses,  uneasy  movements  and  a  hypersensi- 
tive manner.  He  didn't  so  much  speak  as  thrill  with 
thought  vibrations;  he  spoke  like  an  entranced  but 
still  quite  gentlemanly  sibyl.  After  Agatha's  deep 
trumpet  calls,  he  sounded  like  a  solo  on  the  piccolo. 
He  picked  out  all  his  more  important  words  with  a 
little  stress  as  though  he  gave  them  capitals.  He  said 
their  hostess's  remarks  had  set  him  thinking.  He 
thought  it  was  possible  to1  stew  the  Scientific  Argu- 
ment in  its  own  Juice.  There  was  something  he  might 
call  the  Factuarial  Estimate  of  Values.  Well,  it  was 
a  High  Factuarial  Value  on  their  side,  in  his  opinion 
at  any  rate,  when  Anthropologists  came  and  told  him 
that  the  Primitive  Human  Society  was  a  Matriar- 
chate.  ("But  it  wasn't!"  said  Trafford  to  himself.) 
It  had  a  High  Factuarial  Value  when  they  assured 
him  that  Every  One  of  the  Great  Primitive  Inven- 
tions was  made  by  a  Woman,  and  that  it  was  to 
Women  they  owed  Fire  and1  the  early  Epics  and 
Sagas.  ("Good  Lord!"  said  Trafford.)  It  had  a 
High  Factuarial  Value  when  they  not  only  asserted 


294  MARRIAGE 

but  proved  that  for  Thousands  of  Years,  and  per- 
haps for  Hundreds  of  Thousands  of  Years,  Women 
had  been  in  possession  of  Articulate  Speech  before 
men  rose  to  that  Level  of  Intelligence.  .  .  . 

It  occurred  suddenly  to  Trafford  that  he  could  go 
now;  that  it  would  be  better  to  go;  that  indeed  he 
must  go;  it  was  no  doubt  necessary  that  his  mind 
should  have  to  work  in  the  same'  world  as  Buzard's 
mental  processes,  but  at  any  rate  those  two  sets  of 
unsympathetic  functions  need  not  go  on  in  the  same 
room.  Something  might  give  way.  He  got  up,  and 
with  those  elaborate  efforts  to  be  silent  that  lead  to 
the  violent  upsetting  of  chairs,  got  himself  out  of  the 
room  and  into  the  passage,  and  was  at  once  rescued 
by  the  sympathetic  cook-general,  in  her  most  gener- 
alized form,  and  given  fresh  tea  in  his  study — which 
impressed  him  as  being  catastrophically  disar- 
ranged. .  ...  . 

I* 

When  Marjorie  was  at  last  alone  with  him  she 
found  him  in  a  state  of  extreme  mental  stimulation. 
"  Your  speech,"  he  said,  "  was  all  right.  I  didn't 
know  you  could  speak  like  that,  Marjorie.  But  it 
soared  like  the  dove  above  the  waters.  Waters!  I 
never  heard  such  a  flood  of  rubbish.  .  .  .  You 
know,  it's  a  mistake  to  mass  women.  It  brings  out 
something  silly.  ...  It  affected  Buzard  as  badly 
as  any  one.  The  extraordinary  thing  is  they  have  a 
case,  if  only  they'd  be  quiet.  Whj£  did  you  get  them 
together?" 

"  It's  our  local  branch." 

"  Yes,  but  why?" 

"  Well,  if  they  talk  about  things — Discussions 
like  this  clear  up  their  minds." 


THE  NEW  PHASE  £95 

"  Discussion !    It  wasn't  discussion." 

"  Oh !  it  was  a  beginning." 

"  Chatter  of  that  sort  isn't  the  beginning  of  dis- 
cussion, it's  the  end.  It's  the  death-rattle.  Nobody 
was  meeting  the  thoughts  of  any  one.  I  admit  Buz- 
ard,  who's  a  man,  talked  the  worst  rubbish  of  all. 
That  Primitive  Matriarchate  of  his !  So  it  isn't  sex. 
I've  noticed  before  that  the  men  in  this  movement  of 
yours  are  worse  than  the  women.  It  isn't  sex.  It's 
something  else.  It's  a  foolishness.  It's  a  sort  of 
irresponsible  looseness."  He  turned  on  her  gravely. 
"  You  ought  not  to  get  all  these  people  here.  It's 
contagious.  Before  you  know  it  you'll  find  your  own 
mind  liquefy  and  become  enthusiastic  and  slop  about. 
You'll  begin  to  talk  monomania  about  Mr.  Asquith." 

"  But  it's  a  great  movement,  Rag,  even  if  inci- 
dentally they  say  and  do  silly  things !" 

"My  dear!  aren't  I  feminist?  Don't  I  want 
women  fine  and  sane  and  responsible?  Don't  I  want 
them  to  have  education,  to  handle  things,  to  vote  like 
men  and  bear  themselves  with  the  gravity  of  men? 
And  these  meetings — all  hat  and  flutter!  These  dis- 
plays of  weak,  untrained,  hysterical  vehemence! 
These  gatherings  of  open-mouthed  impressionable 
young  girls  to  be  trained  in  incoherence !  You  can't 
go  on  with  it!" 

Marjorie  regarded  him  quietly  for  a  moment.  "  I 
must  go  on  with  something,"  she  said. 

"  Well,  not  this." 

"  Then  what?" 

"  Something  sane." 

"  Tell  me  what." 

"  It  must  come  out  of  yourself." 

Marjorie  thought  sullenly  for  a  moment.  "  Noth- 
ing comes  out  of  myself,"  she  said. 

"  I  don't  think  you  realize  a  bit  what  my  life  has 


296  MARRIAGE 

become,"  she  went  on ;  "  how  much  I'm  like  some  one 
who's  been  put  in  a  pleasant,  high-class  prison." 

"  This  house !    It's  your  own !" 

"  It  doesn't  give  me  an  hour's  mental  occupation 
in  the  day.  It's  all  very  well  to  say  I  might  do  more 
in  it.  I  can't — without  absurdity.  Or  expenditure. 
I  can't  send  the  girl  away  and  start  scrubbing.  I 
can't  make  jam  or  do  ornamental  needlework.  The 
shops  do  it  better  and  cheaper,  and  I  haven't  been 
trained  to  it.  I've  been  trained  not  to  do  it.  I've 
been  brought  up  on  games  and  school-books,  and  fed 
on  mixed  ideas.  I  can't  sit  down  and  pacify  myself 
with  a  needle  as  women  used  to  do.  Besides,  I  not 
only  detest  doing  needlework  but  I  hate  it — the  sort 
of  thing  a  woman  of  my  kind  does  anyhow — when 
it's  done.  I'm  no  artist.  I'm  not  sufficiently  inter- 
ested in  outside  things  to  spend  my  time  in  serious 
systematic  reading,  and  after  four  or  five  novels — oh, 
these  meetings  are  better  than  that !  You  see,  you've 
got  a  life — too  much  of  it — /  haven't  got  enough.  I 
wish  almost  I  could  sleep  away  half  the  day.  Oh !  I 
want  something  real,  Rag ;  something  more  than  I've 
got."  A  sudden  inspiration  came  to  her.  "  Will  you 
let  me  come  to  your  laboratory  and  work  with  you?" 

She  stopped  abruptly.  She  caught  up  her  own 
chance  question  and  pointed  it  at  him,  a  vitally  im- 
portant challenge.  "  Will  you  let  me  come  to  your 
laboratory  and  work?"  she  repeated. 

Trafford  thought.    "  No,"  he  said. 

"Why  not?" 

"  Because  I'm  in  love  with  you.  I  can't  think  of 
my  work  when  you're  about.  .  .  .  And  you're  too 
much  behind.  Oh  my  dear !  don't  you  see  how  you're 
behind  ?"  He  paused.  "  I've  been  soaking  in  this 
stuff  of  mine  for  ten  long  years." 

"  Yes,"  assented  Marjorie  flatly. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  297 

He  watched  her  downcast  face,  and  then  it  lifted 
fco  him  with  a  helpless  appeal  in  her  eyes,  and  lift  in 
her  voice.  "  But  look  here,  Rag  !"  she  cried  —  "  what 
on  earth  am  I  to  DO?" 


At  least  there  came  out  of  these  discussions  one 
thing,  a  phrase,  a  purpose,  which  was  to  rule  the  lives 
of  the  Traffords  for  some  years.  It  expressed  their 
realization  that  instinct  and  impulse  had  so  far 
played  them  false,  that  life  for  all  its  rich  gifts  of 
mutual  happiness  wasn't  adjusted  between  them. 
"  We've  got,"  they  said,  "  to  talk  all  this  out  be- 
tween us.  We've  got  to  work  this  out."  They 
didn't  mean  to  leave  things  at  a  misfit,  and  that  was 
certainly  their  present  relation.  They  were  already 
at  the  problem  of  their  joint  lives,  like  a  tailor  with 
his  pins  and  chalk.  Marjorie  hadn't  rejected  a 
humorist  and  all  his  works  in  order  to  decline  at  last 
to  the  humorous  view  of  life,  that  rather  stupid, 
rather  pathetic,  grin-and-bear-it  attitude  compound- 
ed in  incalculable  proportions  of  goodwill,  evasion, 
indolence,  slovenliness,  and  (nevertheless)  spite 
(masquerading  indeed  as  jesting  comment),  which 
supplies  the  fabric  of  everyday  life  for  untold  thou- 
sands of  educated  middle-class  people.  She  hated 
the  misfit.  She  didn't  for  a  moment  propose  to  pre- 
tend that  the  ungainly  twisted  sleeve,  the  puckered 
back,  was  extremely  jolly  and  funny.  She  had  mar- 
ried with  a  passionate  anticipation  of  things  fitting 
and  fine,  and  it  was  her  nature,  in  great  matters  as  in 
small,  to  get  what  she  wanted  strenuously  before  she 
counted  the  cost.  About  both  their  minds  there  was 
something  sharp  and  unrelenting,  and  if  Marjorie 
had  been  disposed  to  take  refuge  from  facts  in  swath- 
ings  of  aesthetic  romanticism,  whatever  covering  she 


298  MARRIAGE 

contrived  would  have  been  torn  to  rags  very  speedily 
by  that  fierce  and  steely  veracity  which  swung  down 
out  of  the  laboratory  into  her  home. 

One  may  want  to  talk  things  out  long  before  one 
hits  upon  the  phrases  that  will  open  up  the  matter. 

There  were  two  chief  facts  in  the  case  between 
them  and  so  far  they  had  looked  only  one  in  the  face, 
the  fact  that  Marjorie  was  unemployed  to  a  trouble- 
some and  distressing  extent,  and  that  there  was  noth- 
ing in  her  nature  or  training  to  supply,  and  some- 
thing in  their  circumstances  and  relations  to  prevent 
any  adequate  use  of  her  energies.  With  the  second 
fact  neither  of  them  cared  to  come  to  close  quarters 
as  yet,  and  neither  as  yet  saw  very  distinctly  how  it 
was  linked  to  the  first,  and  that  was  the  steady  excess 
of  her  expenditure  over  their  restricted  means.  She 
was  secretly  surprised  at  her  own  weakness.  Week 
by  week  and  month  by  month,  they  were  spending  all 
his  income  and  eating  into  that  little  accumulation  of 
capital  that  had  once  seemed  so  sufficient  against  the 
world.  .  .  . 

And  here  it  has  to  be  told  that  although  Trafford 
knew  that  Marjorie  had  been  spending  too  much 
money,  he  still  had  no  idea  of  just  how  much  money 
she  had  spent.  She  was  doing  her  utmost  to  come  to 
an  understanding  with  him,  and  at  the  same  time — I 
don't  explain  it,  I  don't  excuse  it — she  was  keeping 
back  her  bills  from  him,  keeping  back  urgent  second 
and  third  and  fourth  demands,  that  she  had  no 
cheque-book  now  to  stave  off  even  by  the  most  par- 
tial satisfaction.  It  kept  her  awake  at  nights,  that 
catastrophic  explanation,  that  all  unsuspected  by 
Trafford  hung  over  their  attempts  at  mutual  elucida- 
tion ;  it  kept  her  awake  but  she  could  not  bring  it  to 
the  speaking  point,  and  she  clung,  in  spite  of  her  own 
intelligence,  to  a  persuasion  that  after  they  had  got 


THE  NEW  PHASE  299 

something  really  settled  and  defined  then  it  would  be 
time  enough  to  broach  the  particulars  of  this  second 
divergence.  .  .  . 

Talking  one's  relations  over  isn't  particularly 
easy  between  husband  and  wife  at  any  time;  we  are 
none  of  us  so  sure  of  one  another  as  to  risk  loose 
phrases  or  make  experiments  in  expression  in  mat- 
ters so  vital;  there  is  inevitably  an  excessive  caution 
on  the  one  hand  and  an  abnormal  sensitiveness  to 
hints  and  implications  on  the  other.  Marjorie's  bills 
were  only  an  extreme  instance  of  these  unavoidable 
suppressions  that  always  occur.  Moreover,  when 
two  people  are  continuously  together,  it  is  amazingly 
hard  to  know  when  and  where  to  begin ;  where  inter- 
course is  unbroken  it  is  as  a  matter  of  routine  being 
constantly  interrupted.  You  cannot  broach  these 
broad  personalities  while  you  are  getting  up  in  the 
morning,  or  over  the  breakfast-table  while  you  make 
the  coffee,  or  when  you  meet  again  after  a  multitude 
of  small  events  at  tea,  or  in  the  evening  when  one  is 
rather  tired  and  trivial  after  the  work  of  the  day. 
Then  Miss  Margharita  Trafford  permitted  no  sus- 
tained analysis  of  life  in  her  presence.  She  synthe- 
sized things  fallaciously,  but  for  the  time  convincing- 
ly ;  she  insisted  that  life  wasn't  a  thing  you  discussed, 
but  pink  and  soft  and  jolly,  which  you  crowed  at  and 
laughed  at  and  addressed  as  "  Goo."  Even  without 
Margharita  there  were  occasions  when  the  Traffords 
were  a  forgetfulness  to  one  another.  After  an  ear 
has  been  pinched  or  a  hand  has  been  run  through  a 
man's  hair,  or  a  pretty  bare  shoulder  kissed,  all  sorts 
of  broader  interests  lapse  into  a  temporary  oblivion. 
They  found  discussion  much  more  possible  when  they 
walked  together.  A  walk  seemed  to  take  them  out  of 
the  everyday  sequence,  isolate  them  from  their  house- 
hold, abstract  them  a  little  from  one  another.  They 


300  MARRIAGE 

set  out  one  extravagant  spring  Sunday  to  Great  Mis- 
senden,  and  once  in  spring  also  they  discovered  the 
Waterlow  Park.  On  each  occasion  they  seemed  to 
get  through  an  enormous  amount  of  talking.  But 
the  Great  Missenden  walk  was  all  mixed  up  with  a 
sweet  keen  wind,  and  beech-woods  just  shot  with 
spring  green  and  bursting  hedges  and  the  extreme 
earliness  of  honeysuckle,  which  Trafford  noted  for  the 
first  time,  and  a  clamorous  rejoicing  of  birds.  And 
in  the  Waterlow  Park  there  was  a  great  discussion  of 
why  the  yellow  crocus  comes  before  white  and  purple, 
and  the  closest  examination  of  the  manner  in  which 
daffodils  and  narcissi  thrust  their  green  noses  out  of 
the  garden  beds.  Also  they  found  the  ugly,  ill-serv- 
ed, aggressively  propagandist  non-alcoholic  refresh- 
ment-room in  that  gracious  old  house  a  scandal  and 
disappointment,  and  Trafford  scolded  at  the  stupid- 
ity of  officialdom  that  can  control  so  fine  a  thing  so 
ill. 

Though  they  talked  on  these  walks  they  were  still 
curiously  evasive.  Indeed,  they  were  afraid  of  each 
other.  They  kept  falling  away  from  their  private 
thoughts  and  intentions.  They  generalized,  they  dis- 
cussed Marriage  and  George  Gissing  and  Bernard 
Shaw  and  the  suffrage  movement  and  the  agitation 
for  the  reform  of  the  divorce  laws.  They  pursued 
imaginary  cases  into  distant  thickets  of  contingency 
remotely  far  from  the  personal  issues  between 
them.  .  .  . 

§6 

One  day  came  an  incident  that  Marjorie  found 
wonderfully  illuminating.  Trafford  had  a  fit  of  rage. 
Stung  by  an  unexpected  irritation,  he  forgot  him- 
self, as  people  say,  and  swore,  and  was  almost  physic- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  301 

ally  violent,  and  the  curious  thing  was  that  so  he  lit 
up  things  for  her  as  no  premeditated  attempt  of  his 
had  ever  done. 

A  copy  of  the  Scientific  Bulletin  fired  the  explo- 
sion. He  sat  down  at  the  breakfast-table  with  the 
heaviness  of  a  rather  overworked  and  worried  man, 
tasted  his  coffee,  tore  open  a  letter  and  crumpled  it 
with  his  hand,  turned  to  the  Bulletin,  regarded  its 
list  of  contents  with  a  start,  opened  it,  read  for  a 
minute,  and  expressed  himself  with  an  extraordinary 
heat  of  manner  in  these  amazing  and  unprecedented 
words : 

"  Oh !     Damnation  and  damnation !" 

Then  he  shied  the  paper  into  the  corner  of  the 
room  and  pushed  his  plate  from  him. 

"  Damn  the  whole  scheme  of  things !"  he  said,  and 
met  the  blank  amazement  of  Marjorie's  eye. 

"  Behrens !"  he  said  with  an  air  of  explanation. 

"  Behrens  ?"  she  echoed  with  a  note  of  inquiry. 

"He's  doing  my  stuff!" 

He  sat  darkling  for  a  time  and  then  hit  the  table 
with  his  fist  so  hard  that  the  breakfast  things  seemed 
to  jump  together — to  Marjorie's  infinite  amazement. 
"  I  can't  stand  it !"  he  said. 

She  waited  some  moments.  "  I  don't  understand," 
she  began.  "  What  has  he  done?" 

"  Oh !"  was  Trafford's  answer.  He  got  up,  re- 
covered the  crumpled  paper  and  stood  reading. 
"  Fool  and  thief,"  he  said. 

Marjorie  was  amazed  beyond  measure.  She  felt 
as  though  she  had  been  effaced  from  Trafford's  life. 
"  Ugh !"  he  cried  and  slapped  back  the  Bulletin  into 
the  corner  with  quite  needless  violence.  He  became 
aware  of  Marjorie  again. 

"  He's  doing  my  work,"  he  said. 


302  MARRIAGE 

And  then  as  if  he  completed  the  explanation  > 
"  And  I've  got  to  be  in  Croydon  by  half-past  ten  to 
lecture  to  a  pack  of  spinsters  and  duffers,  because 
they're  too  stupid  to  get  the  stuff  from  books.  It's 
all  in  books, — every  bit  of  it." 

He  paused  and  went  on  in  tones  of  unendurable 
wrong.  "  It  isn't  as  though  he  was  doing  it  right. 
He  isn't.  He  can't.  He's  a  fool.  He's  a  clever, 
greedy,  dishonest  fool  with  a  twist.  Oh !  the  pile,  the 
big  Pile  of  silly  muddled  technicalities  he's  invented 
already!  The  solemn  mess  he's  making  of  it!  And 
there  he  is,  I  can't  get  ahead  of  him,  I  can't  get  at 
him.  I've  got  no  time.  I've  got  no  room  or  leisure 
to  swing  my  mind  in !  Oh,  curse  these  engagements, 
curse  all  these  silly  fretting  entanglements  of  lecture 
and  article!  I  never  get  the  time,  I  can't  get  the 
time,  I  can't  get  my  mind  clear!  I'm  worried!  I'm 
badgered !  And  meanwhile  Behrens !" 

"  Is  he  discovering  what  you  want  to  discover?" 

"  Behrens !  No!  He's  going  through  the  breaches 
I  made.  He's  guessing  out  what  I  meant  to  do.  And 
he's  getting  it  set  out  all  wrong, — misleading  ter- 
minology,— distinctions  made  in  the  wrong  place. 
Oh,  the  fool  he  is  !" 

"  But  afterwards — " 

"  Afterwards  I  may  spend  my  life — removing  the 
obstacles  he's  made.  He'll  be  established  and  I 
shan't.  You  don't  know  anything  of  these  things. 
You  don't  understand." 

She  didn't.  Her  next  question  showed  as  much. 
"  Will  it  affect  your  F.R.S.?"  she  asked. 

"  Oh !  that's  safe  enough,  and  it  doesn't  matter 
anyhow.  The  F.R.S. !  Confound  the  silly  little  F.R.S. ! 
As  if  that  mattered.  It's  seeing  all  my  great  open- 
ings— misused.  It's  seeing  all  I  might  be  doing.  This 
brings  it  all  home  to  me.  Don't  you  understand2 


THE  NEW  PHASE  303 

Marjorie?  Will  you  never  understand?  I'm  getting 
away  from  all  that!  I'm  being  hustled  away  by  all 
this  work,  this  silly  everyday  work  to  get  money. 
Don't  you  see  that  unless  I  can  have  time  for  thought 
and  research,  life  is  just  darkness  to  me?  I've  made 
myself  master  of  that  stuff.  I  had  at  any  rate.  No 
one  can  do  what  I  can  do  there.  And  when  I  find  my- 
self— oh,  shut  out,  shut  out !  I  come  near  raving.  As 
I  think  of  it  I  want  to  rave  again."  He  paused. 
Then  with  a  swift  transition:  "I  suppose  I'd  better 
eat  some  breakfast.  Is  that  egg  boiled?" 

She  gave  him  an  egg,  brought  his  coffee,  put 
things  before  him,  seated  herself  at  the  table.  For  a 
little  while  he  ate  in  silence.  Then  he  cursed  Behrens. 

"  Look  here !"  she  said.  "  Bad  as  I  am,  you've 
got  to  reason  with  me,  Rag.  I  didn't  know  all  this.  I 
didn't  understand  ...  I  don't  know  what  to  do." 

"What  iff  there  to  do?" 

"  I've  got  to  do  something.  I'm  beginning  to  see 
things.  It's  just  as  though  everything  had  become 
clear  suddenly."  She  was  weeping.  "  Oh,  my  dear ! 
I  want  to  help  you.  I  have  so  wanted  to  help  you. 
Always.  And  it's  come  to  this !" 

"  But  it's  not  your  fault.  I  didn't  mean  that. 
It's — it's  in  the  nature  of  things." 

"  It's  my  fault." 

"It's  not  your  fault." 

"  It  is." 

"  Confound  it,  Marjorie.  When  I  swear  at  Beh- 
rens I'm  not  swearing  at  you." 

"  It's  my  fault.  All  this  is  my  fault.  I'm  eating 
you  up.  What's  the  good  of  your  pretending,  Rag. 
You  know  it  is.  Oh !  When  I  married  you  I  meant 
to  make  you  happy,  I  had  no  thought  but  to  make 
you  happy,  to  give  myself  to  you,  my  body,  my 
brains,  everything,  to  make  life  beautiful  for  you — 


304  MARRIAGE 

"Well,  haven't  you?"  He  thrust  out  a  hand  §he 
did  not  take. 

"  I've  broken  your  back,"  she  said. 

An  unwonted  resolution  came  into  her  face.  Her 
lips  whitened.  "  Don't  you  know,  Rag,"  she  said, 

forcing    herself    to    speak "Don't    you    guess? 

You  don't  know  half!      In  that  bureau  there 

In  there !    It's  stuffed  with  bills.     Unpaid  bills." 

She  was  weeping,  with  no  attempt  to  wipe  the 
streaming  tears  away ;  terror  made  the  expression  of 
her  wet  face  almost  fierce.  "Bills,"  she  repeated. 
"  More  than  a  hundred  pounds  still.  Yes !  Now. 
Now!" 

He  drew  back,  stared  at  her  and  with  no  trace  of 
personal  animus,  like  one  who  hears  of  a  common 
disaster,  remarked  with  a  quiet  emphasis:  Oh, 
damn!" 

"  I  know,"  she  said,  "  Damn !"  and  met  his  eyes. 
There  was  a  long  silence  between  them.  She  pro- 
duced a  handkerchief  and  wiped  her  eyes.  "  That's 
what  I  amount  to,"  she  said. 

"  It's  your  silly  upbringing,"  he  said  after  a 
long  pause. 

"  And  my  silly  self." 

She  stood  up,  unlocked  and  opened  her  littered! 
desk,  turned  and  held  out  the  key  to  him. 

"Why?"  he  asked. 

"  Take  it.  You  gave  me  a  cheque-book  of  my 
own  and  a  corner  of  my  own,  and  they — they  are  just 
ambushes — against  you." 

He  shook  his  head. 

"  Take  it,"  said  Marjorie  with  quiet  insistence. 

He  obeyed.  She  stood  with  her  eyes  on  the 
crumpled  heap  of  bills.  They  were  not  even  tidily 
arranged.  That  seemed  to  her  now  an  extreme  ag- 
gravation of  her  offence. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  305 

"  I  ought  to  be  sent  to  the  chemist's,"  she  re- 
marked, "  as  one  sends  a  worthless  cat." 

Trafford  weighed  this  proposition  soberly  for 
some  moments.  "  You're  a  bother,  Marjorie,"  he 
said  with  his  eyes  on  the  desk;  "no  end  of  a  bother. 
I'd  better  have  those  bills." 

He  looked  at  her,  stood  up,  put  his  hands  on  her 
shoulders,  drew  her  to  him  and  kissed  her  forehead. 
He  did  it  without  passion,  without  tenderness,  with 
something  like  resignation  in  his  manner.  She  clung 
to  him  tightly,  as  though  by  clinging  she  could  warm 
and  soften  him. 

"  Rag,"  she  whispered ;  "  all  my  heart  is  yours.  . 
I  want  to  help  you.  .  .  .  And  this  is  what  I  have 
done." 

"  I  know,"  he  said — almost  grimly. 

He  repeated  his  kiss. 

Then  he  seemed  to  explode  again.  "  Gods !"  he 
cried,  "  look  at  the  clock.  I  shall  miss  that  Croydon 
lecture !"  He  pushed  her  from  him.  "  Where  are  my 
boots?  ..." 

§7 

Marjorie  spent  the  forenoon  and  the  earlier  part 
of  the  afternoon  repeating  and  reviewing  this  con- 
versation. Her  mind  was  full  of  the  long  disregarded 
problem  of  her  husband's  state  of  mind.  She  thought 
with  a  sympathetic  astonishment  of  his  swearing,  of 
his  startling  blow  upon  the  table.  She  hadn't  so  far 
known  he  could  swear.  But  this  was  the  real  thing, 
the  relief  of  vehement  and  destructive  words.  His 
voice,  saying  "damnation  and  damnation,"  echoed 
and  re-echoed  in  her  ears.  Somehow  she  under- 
stood that  as  she  had  never  understood  any  sober 
statement  of  his  case.  Such  women  as  Marjorie,  I 
think,  have  an  altogether  keener  understanding  of 


306  MARRIAGE 

people  who  have  lost  control  of  themselves  than  they 
have  of  reasoned  cases.  Perhaps  that  is  because  they 
themselves  always  reserve  something  when  they  state 
a  reasoned  case. 

She  went  on  to  the  apprehension  of  a  change  in 
him  that  hitherto  she  had  not  permitted  herself  to 
see — a  change  in  his  attitude  to  her.  There  had  been 
a  time  when  she  had  seemed  able  without  an  effort  to 
nestle  inside  his  heart.  Now  she  felt  distinctly  for  the 
first  time  that  that  hadn't  happened.  She  had  instead 
a  sense  of  her  embrace  sliding  over  a  rather  deliber- 
ately contracted  exterior.  ...  Of  course  he  had 
been  in  a  hurry.  .  .  . 

She  tried  to  follow  him  on  his  journey  to  Croy- 
don.  Now  he'd  have  just  passed  out  of  London 
Bridge.  What  was  he  thinking  and  feeling  about  her 
in  the  train?  Now  he  would  be  going  into  the  place, 
wherever  it  was,  where  he  gave  his  lecture.  Did  he 
think  of  Behrens  and  curse  her  under  his  breath  as  he 
entered  that  tiresome  room?  .  .  . 

It  seemed  part  of  the  prevailing  inconvenience  of 
life  that  Daffy  should  see  fit  to  pay  an  afternoon  call. 

Marjorie  heard  the  sobs  and  uproar  of  an  ar- 
rested motor,  and  glanced  discreetly  from  the  window 
to  discover  the  dark  green  car  with  its  green-clad 
chauffeur  which  now  adorned  her  sister's  life,  and 
which  might  under  different  circumstances,  have 
adorned  her  own.  Wilkins — his  name  was  JVilkins,  his 
hair  was  sandy  and  his  expression  discreet,  and  he 
afforded  material  for  much  quiet  humorous  observa- 
tion— descended  smartly  and  opened  the  door.  Daffy 
appeared  in  black  velvet,  with  a  huge  black  fur  muff, 
and  an  air  of  being  unaware  that  there  were  such 
things  as  windows  in  the  world. 

It  was  just  four,  and  the  cook-general,  who  ought 
to  have  been  now  in  her  housemaid's  phase,  was  still 


THE  NEW  PHASE  307 

upstairs  divesting  herself  of  her  more  culinary  char- 
acteristics. Marjorie  opened  the  door. 

"  Hullo,  old  Daffy!"  she  said. 

"  Hullo,  old  Madge !"  and  there  was  an  exchange 
of  sisterly  kisses  and  a  mutual  inspection. 

"  Nothing  wrong?"  asked  Daffy,  surveying  her. 

"  Wrong?" 

"  You  look  pale  and — tired  about  the  eyes,"  said 
Daffy,  leading  the  way  into  the  drawing-room. 
"  Thought  you  might  be  a  bit  off  it,  that's  all.  No 
offence,  Madge." 

"  I'm  all  right,"  said  Marjorie,  getting  her  back 
to  the  light.  "  Want  a  holiday,  perhaps.  How's 
every  one?" 

"  All  right.  We're  off  to  Lake  Garda  next  week. 
This  new  play  has  taken  it  out  of  Will  tremendously. 
He  wants  a  rest  and  fresh  surroundings.  It's  to  be  the 
biggest  piece  of  work  he's  done — so  far,  and  it's 
straining  him.  And  people  worry  him  here;  recep- 
tions, first  nights,  dinners,  speeches.  He's  so  neat, 
you  know,  in  his  speeches.  .  .  But  it  wastes  him.  He 
wants  to  get  away.  How's  Rag?" 

"  Busy." 

"  Lecturing?" 

"  And  his  Research  of  course." 

"  Oh!  of  course.     How's  the  Babe?" 

"  Just  in.  Come  up  and  see  the  little  beast, 
Daffy!  It  is  getting  so  pretty,  and  it  talks " 

Margharita  dominated  intercourse  for  a  time. 
She  was  one  of  those  tactful  infants  who  exactly  re- 
semble their  fathers  and  exactly  resemble  their 
mothers,  and  have  a  charm  and  individuality  quite 
distinctly  their  own,  and  she  was  now  beginning  to 
converse  with  startling  enterprise  and  intelligence. 

"  Big,  big,  bog,"  she  said  at  the  sight  of  Daffy. 

"  Remembers  you,"  said  Marjorie. 


308  MARRIAGE 

"Bog!   Go.ta-ta!"  said  Margharita. 

"There!"  said  Marjorie,  and  May,  the  nurse  in 
the  background,  smiled  unlimited  appreciation. 

"  Bably,"  said  Margharita. 

"  That's  herself!  "  said  Marjorie,  falling  on  her 
knees.  "  She  talks  like  this  all  day.  Oh  de  sweetums, 
den!  Was  it? 

Daffy  made  amiable  gestures  and  canary-like 
noises  with  her  lips,  and  Margharita  responded  jovi- 
ally. 

"  You  darling!"  cried  Marjorie,  "  you  delight  of 
life,"  kneeling  by  the  cot  and  giving  the  crowing, 
healthy  little  mite  a  passionate  hug. 

"  It's  really  the  nicest  of  babies/'  Daffy  conceded, 
and  reflected.  .  .  . 

"  I  don't  know  what  I  should  do  with  a  kiddy," 
said  Daffy,  as  the  infant  worship  came  to  an  end; 
"  I'm  really  glad  we  haven't  one — yet.  He'd  love 
it,  I  know.  But  it  would  be  a  burthen  in  some  ways. 
They  are  a  tie.  As  he  says,  the  next  few  years  means 
so  much  for  him.  Of  course,  here  his  reputation  is 
immense,  and  he's  known  in  Germany,  and  there  are 
translations  into  Russian  ;  but  he's  still  got  to  conquer 
America,  and  he  isn't  really  well  known  yet  in  France. 
They  read  him,  of  course,  and  buy  him  in  America, 
but  they're — restive.  Oh!  I  do  so  wish  they'd  give 
him  the  Nobel  prize,  Madge,  and  have  done  with  it ! 
It  would  settle  everything.  Still,  as  he  says,  we  mustn't 
think  of  that — yet,  anyhow.  He  isn't  venerable 
enough.  It's  doubtful,  he  thinks,  that  they  would  give 
the  Nobel  prize  to  any  humorist  now  that  Mark 
Twain  is  dead.  Mark  Twain  was  different,  you  see, 
because  of  the  German  Emperor  and  all  that  white 
hair  and  everything." 

At  this  point  Margharita  discovered  that  the  con- 
versation  had  drifted  away  from  herself,  and  it  was 


THE  NEW  PHASE  309 

only  when  they  got  downstairs  again  that  Daffy 
could  resume  the  thread  of  Magnet's  career,  which 
had  evidently  become  the  predominant  interest  in  her 
life.  She  brought  out  all  the  worst  elements  of  Mar- 
jorie's  nature  and  their  sisterly  relationship.  There 
were  moments  when  it  became  nakedly  apparent  that 
she  was  magnifying  Magnet  to  belittle  Trafford. 
Marjorie  did  her  best  to  counter-brag.  She  played 
her  chief  card  in  the  F.  R.  S. 

"They  always  ask  Will  to  the  Royal  Society 
Dinner,"  threw  out  Daffy ;  "  but  of  course  he  can't 
always  go.  He's  asked  to  so  many  things." 

Five  years  earlier  Marjorie  would  have  kicked 
her  shins  for  that. 

Instead  she  asked  pointedly,  offensively,  if  Mag- 
net was  any  balder. 

"  He's  not  really  bald,"  said  Daffy  unruffled,  and 
went  on  to  discuss  the  advisability  of  a  second  motor 
car — purely  for  town  use.  "  I  tell  him  I  don't  want 
it,"  said  Daffy,  "  but  he's  frightfully  keen  upon  get- 
ting one." 

§8 

When  Daffy  had  at  last  gone  Marjorie  went  back 
into  Trafford's  study  and  stood  on  the  hearthrug 
regarding  its  appointments,  with  something  of  the  air 
of  one  who  awakens  from  a  dream.  She  had  devel- 
oped a  new,  appalling  thought.  Was  Daffy  really  a 
better  wife  than  herself?  It  was  dawning  upon  Mar- 
jorie that  she  hadn't  been  doing  the  right  thing  by 
her  husband,  and  she  was  as  surprised  as  if  it  had  been 
suddenly  brought  home  to  her  that  she  was  neglect- 
ing Margharita.  This  was  her  husband's  study — • 
and  it  showed  just  a  little  dusty  in  the  afternoon  sun- 
shine, and  everything  about  it  denied  the  pretensions 
of  serene  sustained  work  that  she  had  always  made  to 


310  MARRIAGE 

herself.  Here  were  the  crumpled  galley  proofs  of  his 
science  notes;  here  were  unanswered  letters.  There, 
she  dare  not  touch  them,  were  computations,  under  a 
glass  paper-weight.  What  did  they  amount  to  now? 
On  the  table  under  the  window  were  back  numbers  of 
the  Scientific  Bulletin  in  a  rather  untidy  pile,  and  on 
the  footstool  by  the  armchair  she  had  been  accustomed 
to  sit  at  his  feet  when  he  stayed  at  home  to  work,  and 
look  into  the  fire,  and  watch  him  furtively,  and  some- 
times give  way  to  an  overmastering  tenderness  and 
make  love  to  him.  The  thought  of  Magnet,  pam- 
pered, fenced  around,  revered  in  his  industrious  tire- 
some repetitions,  variations,  dramatizations  and  so 
forth  of  the  half-dozen  dry  little  old  jokes  which  the 
British  public  accepted  as  his  characteristic  offering 
and  rewarded  him  for  so  highly,  contrasted  vividly 
with  her  new  realization  of  Trafford's  thankless  work 
and  worried  face. 

And  she  loved  him,  she  loved  him — so.  She  told 
herself  in  the  presence  of  all  these  facts,  and  without 
a  shadow  of  doubt  in  her  mind  that  all  she  wanted  in 
the  world  was  to  make  him  happy. 

It  occurred  to  her  as  a  rather  drastic  means  to 
this  end  that  she  might  commit  suicide. 

She  had  already  gone  some  way  in  the  compo- 
sition of  a  touching  letter  of  farewell  to  him,  contain- 
ing a  luminous  analysis  of  her  own  defects,  before  her 
common-sense  swept  away  this  imaginative  exercise. 

Meanwhile,  as  if  it  had  been  working  at  her  prob- 
lem all  the  time  that  this  exciting  farewell  epistle  had1 
occupied  the  foreground  of  her  thoughts,  her  natural 
lucidity  emerged  with  the  manifest  conclusion  that  she 
had  to  alter  her  way  of  living.  She  had  been  extra- 
ordinarily regardless  of  him,  she  only  began  to  see 
that,  and  now  she  had  to  take  up  the  problem  of  his 
necessities.  Her  self-examination  now  that  it  had 


THE  NEW  PHASE  311 

begun  was  thorough.  She  had  always  told  herself 
before  that  she  had  made  a  most  wonderful  and  beau- 
tiful little  home  for  him.  But  had  she  made  it  for 
him  ?  Had  he  as  a  matter  of  fact  ever  wanted  it,  ex- 
cept that  he  was  glad  to  have  it  through  her?  No 
doubt  it  had  given  him  delight  and  happiness,  it  had 
been  a  marvellous  little  casket  of  love  for  them,  but 
how  far  did  that  outweigh  the  burthen  and  limitation 
it  had  imposed  upon  him?  She  had  always  assumed 
he  was  beyond  measure  grateful  to  her  for  his  home, 
in  spite  of  all  her  bills,  but  was  he?  It  was  like  stick- 
ing a  knife  into  herself  to  ask  that,  but  she  was  now  in 
a  phase  heroic  enough  for  the  task — was  he?  She 
had  always  seen  herself  as  the  giver  of  bounties  ;  great- 
est bounty  of  all  was  Margharita.  She  had  faced 
pains  and  terrors  and  the  shadow  of  death  to  give 
him  Margharita.  Now  with  Daffy's  illuminating 
conversation  in  her  mind,  she  could  turn  the  light 
upon  a  haunting  doubt  that  had  been  lurking  in  the 
darkness  for  a  long  time.  Had  he  really  so  greatly 
wanted  Margharita?  Had  she  ever  troubled  to  get 
to  the  bottom  of  that  before  ?  Hadn't  she  as  a  mat- 
ter of  fact  wanted  Margharita  ten  thousand  times 
more  than  he  had  done?  Hadn't  she  in  effect  imposed 
Margharita  upon  him,  as  she  had  imposed  her  dis- 
tinctive and  delightful  home  upon  him,  regardlessly, 
because  these  things  were  the  natural  and  legitimate 
developments  of  herself? 

These  things  were  not  his  ends. 

Had  she  hitherto  ever  really  cared  what  his  ends 
might  be? 

A  phrase  she  had  heard  abundantly  enough  in 
current  feminist  discussion  recurred  to  her  mind, 
"  the  economic  dependence  of  women,"  and  now  for 
the  first  time  it  was  charged  with  meaning.  She  had 
imposed  these  things  upon  him  not  because  she  loved 


312  MARRIAGE 

him,  but  because  these  things  that  were  the  expan- 
sions and  consequences  of  her  love  for  him  were  only 
obtainable  through  him.  A  woman  gives  herself  to  a 
man  out  of  love,  and  remains  clinging  parasitically  to 
him  out  of  necessity.  Was  there  no  way  of  evading 
that  necessity? 

For  a  time  she  entertained  dreams  of  marvellous 
social  reconstructions.  Suppose  the  community  kept 
all  its  women,  suppose  all  property  in  homes  and 
furnishings  and  children  vested  in  them!  That  was 
Marjorie's  version  of  that  idea  of  the  Endowment  of 
Womanhood  which  has  been  creeping  into  contem- 
porary thought  during  the  last  two  decades.  Then 
every  woman  would  be  a  Princess  to  the  man  she 
loved.  .  .  he  became  more  definitely  personal.  Sup- 
pose she  herself  was  rich,  then  she  could  play  the 
Princess  to  Trafford ;  she  could  have  him  free,  unen- 
cumbered, happy  and  her  lover!  Then,  indeed,  her 
gifts  would  be  gifts,  and  all  her  instincts  and  motives 
would  but  crown  his  unhampered  life !  She  could  not 
go  on  from  that  idea,  she  lapsed  into  a  golden  reverie, 
from  which  she  was  roused  by  the  clock  striking  five. 

In  half  an  hour  perhaps  Trafford  would  be  home 
again.  She  could  at  least  be  so  much  of  a  princess  as 
to  make  his  home  sweet  for  his  home-coming.  There 
should  be  tea  in  here,  where  callers  did  not  trouble. 
She  glanced  at  an  empty  copper  vase.  It  ached. 
There  was  no  light  in  the  room.  There  would  be  just 
time  to  dash  out  into  High  Street  and  buy  some 
flowers  for  it  before  he  came.  .  .  ., 

§9 

Spring  and  a  renewed  and  deepened  love  for  her 
husband  were  in  Marjorie's  blood.  Her  mind  worked 
rapidly  during  the  next  few  days,  and  presently  she 


THE  NEW  PHASE  313 

found  herself  clearly  decided  upon  her  course  of 
action.  She  had  to  pull  herself  together  and  help 
him,  and  if  that  meant  a  Spartan  and  strenuous  way 
of  living,  then  manifestly  she  must  be  Spartan  and 
strenuous.  She  must  put  an  end  once  for  all  to  her 
recurrent  domestic  deficits,  and  since  this  could  only 
be  done  by  getting  rid  of  May,  she  must  get  rid  of 
May  and  mind  the  child  herself.  (Every  day,  thank 
Heaven !  Margharita  became  more  intelligent,  more 
manageable,  and  more  interesting.)  Then  she  must 
also  make  a  far  more  systematic  and  thorough  study 
of  domestic  economy  than  she  had  hitherto  done,  and 
run  the  shopping  and  housekeeping  on  severer  lines ; 
she  bought  fruit  carelessly,  they  had  far  too  many 
joints ;  she  never  seemed  able  to  restrain  herself  when 
it  came  to  flowers.  And  in  the  evenings,  which  would 
necessarily  be  very  frequently  lonely  evenings  if 
Trafford's  researches  were  to  go  on,  she  would  type- 
write, and  either  acquire  great  speed  at  that  or  learn 
shorthand,  and  so  save  Trafford's  present  expenditure 
on  a  typist.  That  unfortunately  would  mean  buy- 
ing a  typewriter. 

She  found  one  afternoon  in  a  twopenny  book-box, 
with  which  she  was  trying  to  allay  her  craving  for 
purchases,  a  tattered  little  pamphlet  entitled :  "  Pro- 
posals for  the  Establishment  of  an  Order  of  Sa- 
murai," which  fell  in  very  exactly  with  her  mood. 
The  title  "  dated" ;  it  carried  her  mind  back  to  her 
middle  girlhood  and  the  defeats  of  Kuropatki  and  the 
futile  earnest  phase  in  English  thought  which  fol- 
lowed the  Boer  War.  The  order  was  to  be  a  sort  of 
self-appointed  nobility  serving  the  world.  It  shone 
with  the  light  of  a  generous  dawn,  but  cast,  I  fear, 
the  shadow  of  the  prig.  It's  end  was  the  Agenda 
Club.  .  .  .She  read  and  ceased  to  read — and  dreamt. 


314  MARRIAGE 

The  project  unfolded  the  picture  of  a  new  method 
of  conduct  to  her,  austere,  yet  picturesque  and  richly 
noble.  These  Samurai,  it  was  intimated,  were  to  lead! 
lives  of  hard  discipline  and  high  effort,  under  self- 
imposed  rule  and  restraint.  They  were  to  stand  a 
little  apart  from  the  excitements  and  temptations  of 
everyday  life,  to  eat  sparingly,  drink  water,  resort 
greatly  to  self-criticism  and  self-examination,  and 
harden  their  spirits  by  severe  and  dangerous  exercises. 
They  were  to  dress  simply,  work  hard,  and  be  the 
conscious  and  deliberate  salt  of  the  world.  They 
were  to  walk  among  mountains.  Incidentally,  great 
power  was  to  be  given  them.  Such  systematic  effort 
and  self-control  as  this,  seemed  to  Marjorie  to  give 
just  all  she  wasn't  and  needed  to  be,  to  save  her  life 
and  Trafford's  from  a  common  disaster.  .  .  . 

It  particularly  appealed  to  her  that  they  were  to 
walk  among  mountains.  . .  . 

But  it  is  hard  to  make  a  change  in  the  colour  of 
one's  life  amidst  the  routine  one  has  already  estab- 
lished about  oneself,  in  the  house  that  is  grooved  by 
one's  weaknesses,  amidst  hangings  and  ornaments 
living  and  breathing  with  the  life  of  an  antagonistic 
and  yet  insidiously  congenial  ideal.  A  great  desire 
came  upon  Marjorie  to  go  away  with  Trafford  for  a 
time,  out  of  their  everyday  life  into  strange  and  cool 
and  spacious  surroundings.  She  wanted  to  leave 
London  and  its  shops,  and  the  home  and  the  move- 
ments and  the  callers  and  rivalries,  and  even  dimpled 
little  Margharita's  insistent  claims,  and  get  free  and 
think.  It  was  the  first  invasion  of  their  lives  by  this 
conception,  a  conception  that  was  ever  afterwards  to 
leave  them  altogether,  of  retreat  and'  reconstruction. 
She  knelt  upon  the  white  sheepskin  hearthrug  at 
Trafford's  feet  one  night,  and  told  him  of  her  desire. 
He,  too,  was  tired  of  his  work  and  his  vexations,  and 


THE  NEW  PHASE  315 

ripe  for  this  suggestion  of  an  altered  life.  The  Eas- 
ter holiday  was  approaching,  and  nearly  twenty  un- 
encumbered days.  Mrs.  Trafford,  they  knew,  would 
come  into  the  house,  meanwhile,  and  care  for  Mar- 
gharita.  They  would  go  away  somewhere  together 
and  walk,  no  luggage  but  a  couple  of  knapsacks,  no 
hotel  but  some  homely  village  inn.  They  would  be  in 
the  air  all  day,  until  they  were  saturated  with  sweet 
air  and  spirit  of  clean  restraints.  They  would  plan 
out  their  new  rule,  concentrate  their  aims.  "  And  I 
could  think,"  said  Trafford,  "  of  this  new  work  I 
can't  begin  here.  I  might  make  some  notes." 
Presently  came  the  question  of  where  the  great  walk 
should  be.  Manifestly,  it  must  be  among  mountains, 
manifestly,  and  Marjorie's  eye  saw  those  mountains 
with  snow  upon  their  summits  and  cold  glaciers  on 
their  flanks.  Could  they  get  to  Switzerland  ?  If  they 
travelled  second  class  throughout,  and  took  the 
cheaper  way,  as  Samurai  should?  .  .  . 

§  10 

That  holiday  seemed  to  Marjorie  as  if  they  had 
found  a  lost  and  forgotten  piece  of  honeymoon.  She 
had  that  same  sense  of  fresh  beginnings  that  had  made 
their  first  walk  in  Italian  Switzerland  so  unforget- 
table. She  was  filled  with  the  happiness  of  recovering 
Trafford  when  he  had  seemed  to  be  slipping  from  her. 
All  day  they  talked  of  their  outlook,  and  how  they 
might  economise  away  the  need  of  his  extra  work, 
and  so  release  him  for  his  search  again.  For  the  first 
time  he  talked  of  his  work  to  her,  and  gave  her  some 
intimation  of  its  scope  and  quality.  He  became  en- 
thusiastic with  the  sudden  invention  of  experimental 
devices,  so  that  it  seemed  to  her  almost  worth  while  if 
instead  of  going  on  they  bolted  back,  he  to  his  labora- 


316  MARRIAGE 

tory  and  she  to  her  nursery,  and  so  at  once  inaugu- 
rated the  new  regime.  But  they  went  on,  to  finish 
the  holiday  out.  And  the  delight  of  being  together 
again  with  unfettered  hours  of  association !  They  re- 
discovered each  other,  the  same — and  a  little  changed. 
If  their  emotions  were  less  bright  and  intense,  their 
interest  was  far  wider  and  deeper. 

The  season  was  too  early  for  high  passes,  and  the 
weather  was  changeable.  They  started  from  Fri- 
bourg  and  walked  to  Thun  and  then  back  to  Bulle, 
and  so  to  Bultigen,  Saanen,  Montbovon  and  the  Lake 
of  Geneva.  They  had  rain  several  days,  the  sweet, 
soft,  windless  mountain  rain  that  seemed  so  tolerable 
to  those  who  are  accustomed  to  the  hard  and  driven 
downpours  of  England,  and  in  places  they  found 
mud  and  receding  snow ;  the  inns  were  at  their  home- 
liest, and  none  the  worse  for  that,  and  there  were  days 
of  spring  sunshine  when  a  multitude  of  minute  and 
delightful  flowers  came  out  as  it  seemed  to  meet  them 
— it  was  impossible  to  suppose  so  great  a  concourse 
universal — and  spread  in  a  scented  carpet  before 
their  straying  feet.  The  fruit  trees  in  the  valleys  were 
powdered  with  blossom,  and  the  new  grass  seemed 
rather  green-tinted  sunlight  than  merely  green.  And 
they  walked  with  a  sort  of  stout  leisureliness,  knap- 
sacks well-hung  and  cloaks  about  them,  with  their 
faces  fresh  and  bright  under  the  bracing  weather, 
and  their  lungs  deep  charged  with  mountain  air, 
talking  of  the  new  austerer  life  that  was  now  begin- 
ning. With  great  snow-capped  mountains  in  the  back- 
ground, streaming  precipices  overhead,  and  a  sward 
of  flowers  to  go  upon,  that  strenuous  prospect  was 
altogether  delightful.  They  went  as  it  pleased  them, 
making  detours  into  valleys,  coming  back  upon  their 
steps.  The  interludes  of  hot,  bright  April  sunshine 
made  them  indolent,  and  they  would  loiter  and  halt 


THE  NEW  PHASE  317 

where  some  rock  or  wall  invited,  and  sit  basking  like 
happy  animals,  talking  very  little,  for  long  hours  to- 
gether. Trafford  seemed  to  have  forgotten  all  the 
strain  and  disappointment  of  the  past  two  years,  to 
be  amazed  but  in  no  wise  incredulous  at  this  enormous 
change  in  her  and  in  their  outlook;  it  filled  her  with 
a  passion  of  pride  and  high  resolve  to  think  that  so 
she  could  recover  and  uplift  him. 

He  was  now  very  deeply  in  love  with  her  again. 
He  talked  indeed  of  his  research,  but  so  that  it  might 
interest  her,  and  when  he  thought  alone,  he  thought, 
not  of  it,  but  of  her,  making  again  the  old  discoveries, 
his  intense  delight  in  the  quality  of  her  voice,  his  joy 
in  a  certain  indescribable  gallantry  in  her  bearing. 
He  pitied  all  men  whose  wives  could  not  carry  them- 
selves, and  whose  voices  failed  and  broke  under  the 
things  they  had  to  say.  And  then  again  there  was 
the  way  she  moved  her  arms,  the  way  her  hands  took 
hold  of  things,  the  alert  lucidity  of  her  eyes,  and  then 
that  faint,  soft  shadow  of  a  smile  upon  her  lips  when 
she  walked  thinking  or  observant,  all  unaware  that  he 
was  watching  her. 

It  rained  in  the  morning  of  their  eleventh  day  and 
then  gave  way  to  warmth  and  sunshine,  so  that  they 
arrived  at  Les  Avants  in  the  afternoon  a  little  muddy 
and  rather  hot.  At  one  of  the  tables  under  the  trees 
outside  the  Grand  Hotel  was  a  small  group  of  people 
dressed  in  the  remarkable  and  imposing  costume 
which  still  in  those  days  distinguished  the  motorist. 
They  turned  from  their  tea  to  a  more  or  less  frank  in- 
spection of  the  Traffords,  and  suddenly  broke  out 
into  cries  of  recognition  and  welcome.  Solomonson 
— for  the  most  part  brown  leather — emerged  with 
extended  hands,  and  behind  him,  nestling  in  the  midst 
of  immense  and  costly  furs,  appeared  the  kindly  sal- 
ience and  brightness  of  his  Lady's  face.  "  Good  luck !" 


318  MARRIAGE 

cried  Solomonson.  "  Good  luck !  Come  and  have  tea 
with  us !  But  this  is  a  happy  encounter !" 

"  We're  dirty — but  so  healthy!"  cried  Marjorie, 
saluting  Lady  Solomonson. 

"  You  look,  oh ! — splendidly  well,"  that  Lady  re- 
sponded. 

"  We've  been  walking." 

"  With  just  that  knapsack!" 

"  It's  been  glorious." 

"  But  the  courage !"  said  Lady  Solomonson,  and 
did  not  add,  "  the  tragic  hardship !"  though  her  tone 
conveyed  it.  She  had  all  the  unquestioning  belief  of 
her  race  in  the  sanity  of  comfort.  She  had  ingrained 
in  her  the  most  definite  ideas  of  man's  position  and 
woman's,  and  that  any  one,  man  or  woman,  should 
walk  in  mud  except  under  dire  necessity,  was  outside 
the  range  of  her  philosophy.  She  thought  Marjorie's 
thick  boots  and  short  skirts  quite  the  most  appalling 
feminine  costume  she  had  ever  seen.  She  saw  only  a 
ruined  complexion  and  damaged  womanhood  in  Mar- 
jorie's rain-washed,  sun-bit  cheek.  Her  benevolent 
heart  rebelled  at  the  spectacle.  It  was  dreadful,  she 
thought,  that  nice  young  people  like  the  Traffords 
should  have  come  to  this. 

The  rest  of  the  party  were  now  informally  intro- 
duced. They  were  all  very  splendid  and  disconcert- 
ingly free  from  mud.  One  was  Christabel  Morrison, 
the  actress,  a  graceful  figure  in  a  green  baize  coat 
and  brown  fur,  who  looked  ever  so  much  more  charm- 
ing than  her  innumerable  postcards  and  illustrated- 
paper  portraits  would  have  led  one  to  expect ;  her 
neighbour  was  Solomonson's  cousin  Lee,  the  organizer 
of  the  Theatre  Syndicate,  a  brown-eyed,  attenuated, 
quick-minded  little  man  with  an  accent  that  struck 
Trafford  as  being  on  the  whole  rather  Dutch,  and  the 
third  lady  was  Lady  Solomonson's  sister,  Mrs.  Lee, 


THE  NEW  PHASE  319 

It  appeared  they  were  all  staying  at  Lee's  villa  above 
Vevey,  part  of  an  amusing  assembly  of  people  who 
were  either  vividly  rich  or  even  more  vividly  clever, 
an  accumulation  which  the  Traffords  in  the  course  of 
the  next  twenty  minutes  were  three  times  invited,  with 
an  increasing  appreciation  and  earnestness,  to  join. 

From  the  first  our  two  young  people  were  not  in- 
disposed to  do  so.  For  eleven  days  they  had  main- 
tained their  duologue  at  the  very  highest  level;  seven 
days  remained  to  them  before  they  must  go  back  to 
begin  the  hard  new  life  in  England,  and  there  was 
something  very  attractive — they  did  not  for  a  moment 
seek  to  discover  the  elements  of  that  attractiveness — 
in  this  proposal  of  five  or  six  days  of  luxurious  indo- 
lence above  the  lake,  a  sort  of  farewell  to  the  worldly 
side  of  worldly  things,  before  they  set  forth  upon 
the  high  and  narrow  path  they  had  resolved  to  tread. 

"  But  we've  got  no  clothes,"  cried  Marjorie,  "  no 
clothes  at  all !  We've  these  hobnail  boots  and  a  pair 
each  of  heelless  slippers." 

"  My  dear !"  cried  Lady  Solomonson  in  real  dis- 
tress, and  as  much  aside  as  circumstances  permitted, 
"  my  dear !  My  sister  can  manage  all  that !"  Her 
voice  fell  to  earnest  undertones.  "  We  can  really 
manage  all  that.  The  house  is  packed  with  things. 
We'll  come  to  dinner  in  fancy  dress.  And  Scott,  my 
maid,  is  so  clever." 

"  But  really!"  said  Marjorie. 

"My  dear!"  said  Lady  Solomonson.  "Every- 
thing." And  she  changed  places  with  Lee  in  order  to 
be  perfectly  confidential  and  explicit.  "  Rachel !" 
she  cried,  and  summoned  her  sister  for  confirmatory 
assurances.  .  .  . 

"  But  my  husband !"  Marjorie  became  audible. 

"  We've  long  Persian  robes,"    said  Mrs,  Lee,  with 


320  MARRIAGE 

a   glance  of  undisguised   appraisement.      "  He'll  be 
splendid.    He'll  look  like  a  Soldan.   .   .   . 

The  rest  of  the  company  forced  a  hectic  conversa- 
tion in  order  not  to  seem  to  listen,  and  presently  Lady 
Solomonson  and  her  sister  were  triumphant.  They 
packed  Marjorie  into  the  motor  car,  and  Trafford 
and  Solomonson  returned  to  Vevey  by  train  and 
thence  up  to  the  villa  by  a  hired  automobile. 

§  11 

They  didn't  go  outside  the  magic  confines  of  the 
Lees'  villa  for  three  days,  and  when  they  did  they  were 
still surroundedby  their  host's  service  and  possessions  ; 
they  made  an  excursion  to  Chillon  in  his  motor-cars, 
and  went  in  his  motor-boat  to  lunch  with  the  May- 
nards  in  their  lake-side  villa  close  to  Geneva.  During 
all  that  time  they  seemed  lifted  off  the  common  earth 
into  a  world  of  fine  fabrics,  agreeable  sounds, 
noiseless  unlimited  service,  and  ample  untroubled 
living.  It  had  an  effect  of  enchantment,  and  the  long 
healthy  arduous  journey  thither  seemed  a  tale  of  in- 
credible effort  amidst  these  sunny  excesses.  The 
weather  had  the  whim  to  be  serenely  fine,  sunshine 
like  summer  and  the  bluest  of  skies  shone  above  the 
white  wall  and  the  ilex  thickets  and  cypresses  that 
bounded  them  in  from  the  great  world  of  crowded 
homes  and  sous  and  small  necessities.  And  through 
the  texture  of  it  all  for  Trafford  ran  a  thread  of 
curious  new  suggestion.  An  intermittent  discussion 
of  economics  and  socialism  was  going  on  between 
himself  and  Solomonson  and  an  agreeable  little  stam- 
mering man  in  brown  named  Minter,  who  walked  up 
in  the  afternoon  from  Vevey, — he  professed  to  be 
writing  a  novel — during  the  earlier  half  of  the  day. 
Minter  displayed  the  keenest  appreciation  of  every- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  321 

thing  in  his  entertainment,  and  blinked  cheerfully 
and  expressed  opinions  of  the  extremest  socialistic  and 
anarchistic  flavour  to  an  accompaniment  of  grateful 
self-indulgence.  "  Your  port-wine  is  wonderful,  Lee," 
he  would  say,  sipping  it.  "  A  terrible  retribution  will 
fall  upon  you  some  day  for  all  this." 

The  villa  had  been  designed  by  Lee  to  please  his 
wife,  and  if  it  was  neither  very  beautiful  nor  very  dig- 
nified, it  was  at  any  rate  very  pretty  and  amusing. 
It  might  have  been  built  by  a  Parisian  dressmaker — 
in  the  chateauesque  style.  It  was  of  greyish-white 
stone,  with  a  roof  of  tiles.  It  had  little  balconies  and 
acutely  roofed  turrets,  and  almost  burlesque  but- 
tresses, pierced  by  doors  and  gates ;  and  sun-trap  log- 
gias, as  pleasantly  casual  as  the  bows  and  embroider- 
ies of  a  woman's  dress ;  and  its  central  hall,  with  an 
impluvium  that  had  nothing  to  do  with  rain-water, 
and  its  dining-room,  to  which  one  ascended  from  this 
hall  between  pillars  up  five  broad  steps,  were  entirely 
irrelevant  to  all  its  exterior  features.  Unobtrusive 
men-servants  in  grey  with  scarlet  facings  hovered 
serviceably. 

From  the  little  terrace,  all  set  with  orange-trees 
in  tubs,  one  could  see,  through  the  branches  and  stems 
of  evergreens  and  over  a  foreground  of  budding,  start- 
ing vineyard,  the  clustering  roofs  of  Vevey  below,  an 
agglomeration  veiled  ever  so  thinly  in  the  morning 
by  a  cobweb  of  wood  smoke,  against  the  blue  back- 
ground of  lake  with  its  winged  sailing-boats,  and  som- 
bre  Alpine  distances.  Minter  made  it  all  significant 
by  a  wave  of  the  hand.  "  All  this,"  he  said,  and  of 
the  crowded  work-a-day  life  below,  "  all  that." 

"  All  this,"  with  its  rich  litter  of  stuffs  and  orna- 
ments, its  fine  profusion,  its  delicacies  of  flower  and 
food  and  furniture,  its  frequent  inconsecutive  pleas- 
ures, its  noiseless,  ready  service,  was  remarkably 


322  MARRIAGE 

novel  and  yet  remarkably  familiar  to  Trafford.  For 
a  time  he  could  not  understand  this  undertone  of  fa- 
miliarity, and  then  a  sunlit  group  of  hangings  in  one 
of  the  small  rooms  that  looked  out  upon  the  lake  took 
his  mind  back  to  his  own  dining-room,  and  the  little 
inadequate,  but  decidedly  good,  Bokhara  embroidery 
that  dominated  it  like  a  flag,  that  lit  it,  and  now  lit 
his  understanding,  like  a  confessed  desire.  Of  course, 
Mrs.  Lee — happy  woman! — was  doing  just  every- 
thing that  Marjorie  would  have  loved  to  do.  Mar- 
jorie  had  never  confessed  as  much,  perhaps  she  had 
never  understood  as  much,  but  now  in  the  pres- 
ence of  Mrs.  Lee's  aesthetic  exuberances,  Trafford  at 
least  understood.  He  surveyed  the  little  room,  whose 
harmonies  he  had  at  first  simply  taken  for  granted, 
noted  the  lustre-ware  that  answered  to  the  gleaming 
Persian  tiles,  the  inspiration  of  a  metallic  thread  in 
the  hangings,  and  the  exquisite  choice  of  the  dead- 
ened paint  upon  the  woodwork,  and  realized  for  the 
first  time  how  little  aimless  extravagance  can  be,  and 
all  the  timid,  obstinately  insurgent  artistry  that 
troubled  his  wife.  He  stepped  through  the  open  win- 
dow into  a  little  loggia,  and  stared  unseeingly  over 
glittering,  dark-green  leaves  to  the  mysteries  of  dis- 
tance in  the  great  masses  above  St.  Gingolph,  and  it 
seemed  for  the  first  time  that  perhaps  in  his  thoughts 
he  had  done  his  wife  a  wrong.  He  had  judged  her 
fickle,  impulsive,  erratic,  perhaps  merely  because 
her  mind  followed  a  different  process  from  his,  be- 
cause while  he  went  upon  the  lines  of  constructive 
truth,  her  guide  was  a  more  immediate  and  instinctive 
sense  of  beauty. 

He  was  very  much  alive  to  her  now,  and  deeply  in 
love  with  her.  He  had  reached  Les  Avants  with  all 
his  sense  of  their  discordance  clean  washed  and 
walked  out  of  his  mind,  by  rain  and  sun  and  a  flow  of 


THE  NEW  PHASE  823 

high  resolutions,  and  the  brotherly  swing  of  their 
strides  together.  They  had  come  to  the  Lee's  villa, 
mud-splashed,  air-sweet  comrades,  all  unaware  of  the 
subtle  differences  of  atmosphere  they  had  to  en- 
counter. They  had  no  suspicion  that  it  was  only 
about  half  of  each  other  that  had  fraternized.  Now 
here  they  were  in  a  company  that  was  not  only 
altogether  alien  to  their  former  mood,  but  extreme- 
ly interesting  and1  exciting  and  closely  akin  to  the  la- 
tent factors  in  Marjorie's  composition.  Their  hostess 
and  her  sister  had  the  keen,  quick  aesthetic  sensibili- 
ties of  their  race,  with  all  that  freedom  of  reading 
and  enfranchisement  of  mind  which  is  the  lot  of  the 
Western  women.  Lee  had  an  immense  indulgent 
affection  for  his  wife,  he  regarded  her  arrangements 
and  exploits  with  an  admiration  that  was  almost 
American.  And  Mrs.  Lee's  imagination  had  run 
loose  in  pursuit  of  beautiful  and  remarkable  people 
and  splendours  rather  than  harmonies  of  line  and 
colour.  Lee,  like  Solomonson,  had  that  inex- 
plicable alchemy  of  mind  which  distils  gold  from 
the  commerce  of  the  world  ("  All  this,"  said  Minter 
to  Trafford,  "  is  an  exhalation  from  all  that")  ;  he 
accumulated  wealth  as  one  grows  a  beard,  and  found 
his  interest  in  his  uxorious  satisfactions,  and  so  Mrs. 
Lee,  with  her  bright  watchful  eyes,  quick  impulsive 
movements  and  instinctive  command  had  the  utmost 
freedom  to  realize  her  ideals. 

In  the  world  at  large  Lee  and  Solomonson  seemed 
both  a  little  short  and  a  little  stout,  and  a  little  too 
black  and  bright  for  their  entirely  conventional  cloth- 
ing, but  for  the  dinner  and  evening  of  the  villa  they 
were  now,  out  of  consideration  for  Trafford,  at  their 
ease,  and  far  more  dignified  in  Oriental  robes.  Traf- 
ford was  accommodated1  with  a  long,  black,  delicately 
embroidered  garment  that  reached  to  his  feet,  and 


324  MARRIAGE 

suited  something  upstanding  and  fine  in  his  bearing; 
Minter,  who  had  stayed  on  from  an  afternoon  call, 
was  gorgeous  in  Chinese  embroidery.  The  rest  of  the 
men  clung  boldly  or  bashfully  to  evening  dress.  .  .  . 

On  the  evening  of  his  arrival  Trafford,  bathed  and 
robed,  found  the  rest  of  the  men  assembling  about  an 
open  wood  fire  in  the  smaller  hall  at  the  foot  of  the 
main  staircase.  Lee  was  still  upstairs,  and  Solomon- 
son,  with  a  new  grace  of  gesture  begotten  by  his  cos- 
tume, made  the  necessary  introductions ;  a  little  man 
with  fine-cut  features  and  a  Galway  accent  was  Rex 
the  playwright ;  a  tall,  grey-haired,  clean-shaven  man 
was  Bright  from  the  New  York  Central  Museum ;  and 
a  bearded  giant  with  a  roof  of  red  hair  and  a  remote 
eye  was  Radlett  Barns,  the  great  portrait-painter, 
who  consents  to  paint  your  portrait  for  posterity  as 
the  King  confers  a  knighthood.  These  were  presently 
joined  by  Lee  and  Pacey,  the  blond-haired  musician, 
and  Mottersham,  whose  patents  and  inventions  con- 
trol electric  lighting  and  heating  all  over  the  world, 
and  then,  with  the  men  duly  gathered  and  exDectant, 
the  women  came  down  the  wide  staircase. 

The  staircase  had  been  planned  and  lit  for  these 
effects,  and  Mrs.  Lee  meant  to  make  the  most  of  her 
new  discovery.  Her  voice  could  be  heard  in  the  un- 
seen corridor  above  arranging  the  descent :  "  You  go 
first,  dear.  Will  you  go  with  Christabel?"  The  con- 
versation about  the  fire  checked  and  ceased  with  the 
sound  of  voices  above  and  the  faint  rustle  of  skirts. 
Then  came  Christabel  Morrison,  her  slender  grace 
beautifully  contrasted  with  the  fuller  beauties  of  that 
great  lady  of  the  stage,  Marion  Rufus.  Lady  Solo- 
monson  descended  confidently  in  a  group  of  three, 
with  Lady  Mottersham  and  sharp-tongued  little  Mrs. 
Rex,  all  very  rich  and  splendid.  After  a  brief  interval 
their  hostess  preceded  Marjorie,  and  was  so  much  of 


THE  NEW  PHASE  32.5 

an  artist  that  she  had  dressed  herself  merely  as  a  foil 
to  this  new  creation.  She  wore  black  and  scarlet, 
that  made  the  white  face  and  bright  eyes  under  her 
sombre  hair  seem  the  face  of  an  inspiring  spirit.  A 
step  behind  her  and  to  the  right  of  her  came  Mar- 
jorie,  tall  and  wonderful,  as  if  she  were  the  queen  of 
earth  and  sunshine,  swathed  barbarically  in  gold  and 
ruddy  brown,  and  with  her  abundant  hair  bound  back 
by  a  fillet  of  bloodstones  and  gold.  Radlett  Barns 
exclaimed  at  the  sight  of  her.  She  was  full  of  the 
manifest  consciousness  of  dignity  as  she  descended, 
quite  conscious  and  quite  unembarrassed;  two  bor- 
rowed golden  circlets  glittered  on  her  shining  arm, 
and  a  thin  chain  of  gold  and  garnets  broke  the  con- 
trast of  the  warm,  sun-touched  neck  above,  with  the 
unsullied  skin  below. 

She  sought  and  met  her  husband's  astonishment 
with  the  faintest,  remotest  of  smiles.  It  seemed  to  him 
that  never  before  had  he  appreciated  her  beauty. 
His  daily  companion  had  become  this  splendour  in 
the  sky.  She  came  close  by  him  with  hand  extended  to 
greet  Sir  Philip  Mottersham.  He  was  sensible  of 
the  glow  of  her,  as  it  were  of  a  scented  aura  about 
her.  He  had  a  first  full  intimation  of  the  cult  and 
worship  of  woman  and  the  magnificence  of  women, 
old  as  the  Mediterranean  and  its  goddesses,  and  al- 
together novel  to  his  mind.  .  .  . 

Christabel  Morrison  found  him  a  pleasant  but  not 
very  entertaining  or  exciting  neighbor  at  the  dinner- 
table,  and  was  relieved  when  the  time  came  for  her  to 
turn  an  ear  to  the  artistic  compliments  of  Radlett 
Barns.  But  Trafford  was  too  interested  and  amused 
by  the  general  effect  of  the  dinner  to  devote  himself 
to  the  rather  heavy  business  of  really  exhilarating 
Christabel.  He  didn't  give  his  mind  to  her.  He  found 
the  transformation  of  Sir  Rupert  into  a  turbanned 


326  MARRIAGE 

Oriental  who  might  have  come  out  of  a  picture  by 
Carpaccio,  gently  stimulating  and  altogether  delight- 
ful. His  attention  returned  again  and  again  to  that 
genial  swarthiness.  Mrs.  Lee  on  his  left  lived  in  her 
eyes,  and  didn't  so  much  talk  to  him  as  rattle  her  mind 
at  him  almost  absent-mindedly,  as  one  might  dangle 
keys  at  a  baby  while  one  talked  to  its  mother.  Yet  it 
was  evident  she  liked  the  look  of  him.  Her  glance 
went  from  his  face  to  his  robe,  and  up  and  down  the 
table,  at  the  bright  dresses,  the  shining  arms,  the 
glass  and  light  and  silver.  She  asked  him  to  tell  her 
just  where  he  had  tramped  and  just  what  he  had  seen, 
and  he  had  scarcely  begun  answering  her  question 
before  her  thoughts  flew  off  to  three  trophies  of  china 
and  silver,  struggling  groups  of  china  boys  bearing 
up  great  silver  shells  of  fruit  and  flowers  that  stood 
down  the  centre  of  the  table.  "  What  do  you  think 
of  my  chubby  boys  ?"  she  asked.  "  They're  German 
work.  They  came  from  a  show  at  Diisseldorf  last 
week.  Ben  saw  I  liked  them,  and  sent  back  for  them 
secretly,  and  here  they  are!  I  thought  they  might 
be  too  colourless.  But  are  they?" 

"  No,"  said  Traiford,  "  they're  just  cool.  Under 
that  glow  of  fruit.  Is  this  salt-cellar  English  cut 
glass?" 

"  Old  Dutch,"  said  Mrs.  Lee.  "  Isn't  it  jolly?" 
She  embarked  with  a  roving  eye  upon  the  story  of 
her  Dutch  glass,  which  was  abundant  and  admirable, 
and  broke  off  abruptly  to  say,  "  Your  wife  is  won- 
derful." 

"  Her  hair  goes  back,"  she  said,  "  like  music. 
You  know  what  I  mean — a  sort  of  easy  rhythm.  You 
don't  mind  my  praising  your  wife?" 

Trafford  said  he  didn't. 

"  And  there's  a  sort  of  dignity  about  her.  All  my 
life,  Mr.  Trafford,  I've  wanted  to  be  tall.  It  stopped 
my  growth." 


THE  NEW  PHASE  827 

She  glanced  off  at  a  tangent.  "  Tell  me,  Mr. 
Trafford,"  she  asked,  "  was  your  wife  beautiful  like 
this  when  you  married  her?  I  mean — of  course  she 
was  a  beautiful  girl  and  adorable  and  all  that;  but 
wasn't  she  just  a  slender  thing?" 

She  paused,  but  if  she  had  a  habit  of  asking  dis- 
concerting questions  she  did  not  at  any  rate  insist 
upon  answers,  and  she  went  on  to  confess  that  she  be- 
lieved she  would  be  a  happier  woman  poor  than  rich — 
"  not  that  Ben  isn't  all  he  should  be"— but  that  then 
she  would  have  been  a  fashionable  dressmaker. 
"People  want  help,"  she  said,  "so  much  more  help 
than  they  get.  They  go  about  with  themselves — 
what  was  it  Mr.  Radlett  Barns  said  the  other  night — 
oh! — like  people  leading  horses  they  daren't  ride. 
I  think  he  says  such  good  things  at  times,  don't  you? 
So  wonderful  to  be  clever  in  two  ways  like  that. 
Just  look  now  at  your  wife — now  I  mean,  that  they've 
drawn  that  peacock-coloured  curtain  behind  her. 
My  brother-in-law  has  been  telling  me  you  keep 
the  most  wonderful  and  precious  secrets  locked  up  in 
your  breast,  that  you  know  how  to  make  gold  and 
diamonds  and  all  sorts  of  things.  If  I  did, — I  should 
make  them." 

She  pounced  suddenly  upon  Rex  at  her  left  with 
questions  about  the  Keltic  Renascence,  was  it  still 
going  on — or  what?  and  Trafford  was  at  liberty  for 
a  time  to  enjoy  the  bright  effects  about  him,  the 
shadowed  profile  and  black  hair  of  Christabel  to  the 
right  of  him,  and  the  coruscating  refractions  and 
reflections  of  Lady  Solomonson  across  the  white  and 
silver  and  ivory  and  blossom  of  the  table.  Then  Mrs. 
Lee  dragged  him  into  a  sudden  conflict  with  Rex,  by 
saying  abruptly — 

"  Of  course,  Mr.  Trafford  wouldn't  believe  that." 

He  looked  perhaps  a  little  lost. 


328  MARRIAGE 

"  I  was  telling  Mrs.  Lee,"  said  Rex,  "  that  I  don't 
believe  there's  any  economy  of  human  toil  in 
machinery  whatever.  I  mean  that  the  machine  itself 
really  embodies  all  the  toil  it  seems  to  save,  toil  that 
went  to  the  making  of  it  and  preparing  it  and  get- 
ting coal  for  it.  .  .  ." 


Next  morning  they  found  their  hostess  at  break- 
fast in  the  dining-room  and  now  the  sun  was  stream- 
ing through  a  high  triple  window  that  had  been  cur- 
tained overnight,  and  they  looked  out  through  clean, 
bright  plate-glass  upon  mountains  half-dissolved  in  a 
luminous  mist,  and  a  mist-veiled  lake  below.  Great 
stone  jars  upon  the  terrace  bore  a  blaze  of  urged  and 
early  blossom,  and  beyond  were  cypresses.  Their 
hostess  presided  at  one  of  two  round  tables,  at  a  side 
table  various  breakfast  dishes  kept  warm  over  spirit 
lamps,  and  two  men  servants  dispensed  tea  and  cof- 
fee. In  the  bay  of  the  window  was  a  fruit  table, 
with  piled  fruit-plates  and  finger-bowls. 

Mrs.  Lee  waved  a  welcoming  hand,  and  drew 
Marjorie  to  a  seat  beside  her.  Rex  was  consuming 
trout  and  Christabel  peaches,  and  Solomonson,  all 
his  overnight  Orientalism  abandoned,  was  in  out- 
spoken tweeds  and  quite  under  the  impression  that  he 
was  interested  in  golf.  Trafford  got  frizzled  bacon 
for  Marjorie  and  himself,  and  dropped  into  a  desul- 
tory conversation,  chiefly  sustained  by  Christabel, 
about  the  peculiarly  exalting  effect  of  beautiful  scen- 
ery on  Christabel's  mind.  Mrs.  Lee  was  as  usual 
distraught,  and  kept  glancing  towards  the  steps  that 
led  up  from  the  hall.  Lady  Solomonson  appeared 
with  a  rustle  in  a  wrapper  of  pink  Chinese  silk.  "  I 
came  down  after  all,"  she  said.  "  I  lay  in  bed  weigh- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  329 

ing  rolls  and  coffee  and  relaxed  muscles  against  your 
English  breakfast  downstairs.  And  suddenly  I  re- 
membered your  little  sausages!" 

She  sat  down  with  a  distribution  of  handker- 
chief, bag,  letters,  a  gold  fountain  pen  and  such-like 
equipments,  and  Trafford  got  her  some  of  the  coveted 
delicacies.  Mrs.  Lee  suddenly  cried  out,  "Here 
they  come!  Here  they  come!"  and  simultaneously 
the  hall  resonated  with  children's  voices  and  the  yap- 
ping of  a  Skye  terrier. 

Then  a  gay  little  procession  appeared  ascending 
the  steps.  First  came  a  small  but  princely  little  boy 
of  three,  with  a  ruddy  face  and  curly  black  hair, 
behind  him  was  a  slender,  rather  awkward  girl  of 
perhaps  eleven,  and  a  sturdier  daughter  of  Israel  of 
nine.  A  nurse  in  artistic  purple  followed,  listening 
inattentively  to  some  private  whisperings  of  a 
knickerbockered  young  man  of  five,  and  then  came 
another  purple-robed  nurse  against  contingencies, 
and  then  a  nurse  of  a  different,  white-clad,  and 
more  elaborately  costumed  sort,  carrying  a  sumptu- 
ous baby  of  eight  or  nine  months.  "  Ah !  the  dar- 
lings!" cried  Christabel,  springing  up  quite  beauti- 
fully, and  Lady  Solomonson  echoed  the  cry.  The 
procession  broke  against  the  tables  and  split  about 
the  breakfast  party.  The  small  boy  in  petticoats 
made  a  confident  rush  for  Marjorie,  Christabel  set 
herself  to  fascinate  his  elder  brother,  the  young 
woman  of  eleven  scrutinized  Trafford  with  specula- 
tive interest  and  edged  towards  him  coyly,  and  Mrs. 
Lee  interviewed  her  youngest  born.  The  amiable 
inanities  suitable  to  the  occasion  had  scarcely  begun 
before  a  violent  clapping  of  hands  announced  the 
appearance  of  Lee. 

It  was  Lee's  custom,  Mrs.  Lee  told  Marjorie  over 
her  massively  robed  baby,  to  get  up  very  early  and 


330  MARRIAGE 

work  on  rolls  and1  coffee;  he  never  breakfasted  nor 
joined  them  until  the  children  came.  All  of  them 
rushed  to  him  for  their  morning  kiss,  and  it  seem- 
ed to  Trafford  that  Lee  at  least  was  an  altogether 
happy  creature  as  he  accepted  the  demonstrative 
salutations  of  this  struggling,  elbowing  armful  of 
offspring,  and  emerged  at  last  like  a  man  from  a 
dive,  flushed  and  ruffled  and  smiling,  to  wish  his  adult 
guests  good  morning. 

"  Come  upstairs  with  us,  daddy,"  cried  the  chil- 
dren, tugging  at  him.  "  Come  upstairs  I" 

Mrs.  Lee  ran  her  eye  about  her  table  and  rose. 
"It's  the  children's  hour,"  she  said  to  Marjorie. 
"  You  don't  I  hope,  mind  children?" 

"  But,"  said  Trafford  incredulous,  and  with  a 
friendly  arm  about  his  admirer,  "  is  this  tall  young 
woman  yours?" 

The  child  shot  him  a  glance  of  passionate  appre- 
ciation for  this  scrap  of  flattery. 

"  We  began  young,"  said  Mrs.  Lee,  with  eyes  of 
uncritical  pride  for  the  ungainly  one,  and  smiled  at 
her  husband. 

"  Upstairs,"  cried  the  boy  of  five  and  the  girl  of 
nine.  "  Upstairs." 

"May  we  come?"  asked  Marjorie. 

"  May  we  all  come  ?"  asked  Christabel,  determined 
to  be  in  the  movement. 

Rex  strolled  towards  the  cigars,  with  disentangle- 
ment obviously  in  his  mind. 

"Do  you  really  care?"  asked  Mrs.  Lee.  "You 
know,  I'm  so  proud  of  their  nursery.  Would  you 
care ?  Always  I  go  up  at  this  time." 

66  I've  my  little  nursery,  too,"  said  Marjorie. 

"Of  course!"  cried  Mrs.  Lee,  "I  forgot.  Of 
course;"  and  overwhelmed  Marjorie  with  inquiries  as 
she  followed  her  husband.  Every  one  joined1  the 


THE  NEW  PHASE  831 

nurseryward  procession  except  Rex,  who  left  himself 
behind  with  an  air  of  inadvertency,  and  escaped  to 
the  terrace  and  a  cigar.  .  .  . 

It  was  a  wonderful  nursery,  a  suite  of  three  bed- 
rooms, a  green  and  white,  well-lit  schoolroom  and  a 
vast  playroom,  and  hovering  about  the  passage  Traf- 
ford  remarked  a  third  purple  nurse  and  a  very 
efficient  and  serious-looking  Swiss  governess.  The 
schoolroom  and  the  nursery  displayed  a  triumph  of 
judicious  shopping  and  arrangement,  the  best  of 
German  and  French  and  English  things  had  been 
blended  into  a  harmony  at  once  hygienic  and  peda- 
gogic and  humanly  charming.  For  once  Marjorie 
had  to  admire  the  spending  of  another  woman,  and 
admit  to  herself  that  even  she  could  not  have  done 
better  with  the  money. 

There  were  clever  little  desks  for  the  elder  children 
to  work  at,  adjustable  desks  scientifically  lit  so  that 
they  benefited  hands  and  shoulders  and  eyes;  there 
were  artistically  coloured  and  artistically  arranged 
pictures,  and  a  little  library  held  all  the  best  of  Lang 
and  Lucas,  rare  good  things  like  "  Uncle  Lubin," 
Maurice  Baring's  story  of  "  Forget-me-not,"  "  John- 
ny Crow's  Garden,"  "The  Bad  Child's  Book  of 
Beasts,"  animal  books  and  bird  books,  costume  books 
and  story  books,  colour  books  and  rhyme  books, 
abundant,  yet  every  one  intelligently  chosen,  no  cost- 
ly meretricious  printed  rubbish  such  as  silly  Gentile 
mothers  buy.  Then  in  the  great  nursery,  with  its 
cork  carpet  on  which  any  toy  would  stand  or  run, 
was  an  abundance  of  admirable  possessions  and  shelv- 
ing for  everything,  and  great  fat  cloth  elephants 
to  ride,  and  go-carts,  and  hooks  for  a  swing.  Mar- 
jorie's  quick  eye  saw,  and  she  admired  effusively  and 
envied  secretly,  and  Mrs.  Lee  appreciated  her  ap- 
preciation. A  skirmishing  romp  of  the  middle  chil- 


332  MARRIAGE 

dren  and  Lee  went  on  about  the  two  of  them,  and 
Trafford  was  led  off  by  his  admirer  into  a  cubby- 
house  in  one  corner  (with  real  glass  windows  made 
to  open)  and  the  muslin  curtains  were  drawn  while 
he  was  shown  a  secret  under  vows.  Lady  Solomonson 
discovered  some  soldiers,  and  was  presently  on  her 
knees  in  a  corner  with  the  five-year  old  boy. 

"  These  are  like  my  Teddy's,"  she  was  saying. 
"  My  Billy  has  some  of  these." 

Trafford  emerged  from  the  cubby-house,  which 
was  perhaps  a  little  cramped  for  him,  and  surveyed 
the  room,  with  his  admirer  lugging  at  his  arm  un- 
heeded, and  whispering :  "  Come  back  with  me." 

Of  course  this  was  the  clue  to  Lee  and  Solomon- 
son.  How  extremely  happy  Lee  appeared  to  be! 
Enormous  vistas  of  dark  philoprogenitive  parents 
and  healthy  little  Jews  and  Jewesses  seemed  to  open 
out  to  Trafford,  hygienically  reared,  exquisitely 
trained  and  educated.  And  he  and  Marjorie  had 
just  one  little  daughter — with  a  much  poorer  edu- 
cational outlook.  She  had  no  cloth  elephant  to  ride, 
no  elaborate  cubby-house  to  get  into,  only  a  half- 
dozen  picture  books  or  so,  and  later  she  wouldn't 
when  she  needed  it  get  that  linguistic  Swiss. 

He  wasn't  above  the  normal  human  vanity  of 
esteeming  his  own  race  and  type  the  best,  and  certain 
vulgar  aspects  of  what  nowadays  one  calls  Eugenics 
crossed  his  mind. 

§  13 

During  those  few  crowded  days  of  unfamiliar 
living  Trafford  accumulated  a  vast  confused  mass 
of  thoughts  and  impressions.  He  realized  acutely 
the  enormous  gulf  between  his  attitudes  towards 
women  and  those  of  his  host  and  Solomonson — and 
indeed  of  all  the  other  men.  It  had  never  occurred  to 


THE  NEW  PHASE  333 

hi.m  before  that  there  was  any  other  relationship 
possible  between  a  modern  woman  and  a  modern  man 
but  a  frank  comradeship  and  perfect  knowledge,  help- 
fulness, and  honesty.  That  had  been  the  continual 
implication  of  his  mother's  life,  and  of  all  that  he 
had  respected  in  the  thought  and  writing  of  his  time. 
But  not  one  of  these  men  in  their  place — with  the 
possible  exception  of  Minter,  who  remained  brilliant 
but  ambiguous — believed  anything  of  the  sort.  It 
necessarily  involved  in  practice  a  share  of  hardship 
for  women,  and  it  seemed  fundamental  to  them  that 
women  should  have  no  hardship.  He  sought  for  a 
word,  and  hung  between  chivalry  and  orientalism.  He 
inclined  towards  chivalry.  Their  women  were  lifted 
a  little  off  the  cold  ground  of  responsibility.  Charm 
was  their  obligation.  "  A  beautiful  woman  should 
be  beautifully  dressed,"  said  Radlett  Barns  in  the 
course  of  the  discussion  of  a  contemporary  por- 
trait painter.  Lee  nodded  to  endorse  an  obvious 
truth.  "  But  she  ought  to  dress  herself,"  said  Barns. 
"  It  ought  to  be  herself  to  the  points  of  the  old  lace 
• — chosen  and  assimilated.  It's  just  through  not  being 
that,  that  so  many  rich  women  are — detestable. 
Heaps  of  acquisition.  Caddis-women.  .  .  ." 

Trafford  ceased  to  listen,  he  helped  himself  to  a 
cigar  and  pinched  its  end  and  lit  it,  while  his  mind 
went  off  to  gnaw  at :  "A  beautiful  woman  should  be 
beautifully  dressed,"  as  a  dog  retires  with  a  bone. 
He  couldn't  escape  from  its  shining  truth,  and  withal 
it  was  devastating  to  all  the  purposes  of  his  life. 

He  rejected  the  word  orientalism;  what  he  was 
dealing  with  here  was  chivalry.  "  All  this,"  was  in- 
deed, under  the  thinnest  of  disguises,  the  castle  and 
the  pavilion,  and  Lee  and  Solomonson  were  valiant 
knights,  who  entered  the  lists  not  indeed  with  spear 
and  shield  but  with  prospectus  and  ingenious  enter- 


384  MARRIAGE 

prise,  who  drew  cheques  instead  of  swords  for  their 
ladies'  honour,  who  held  "  all  that"  in  fee  and  sub- 
jection that  these  exquisite  and  wonderful  beings 
should  flower  in  rich  perfection.  All  these  women 
lived  in  a  magic  security  and  abundance,  far  above 
the  mire  and  adventure  of  the  world;  their  knights 
went  upon  quests  for  them  and  returned  with  villas 
and  pictures  and  diamonds  and  historical  pearls. 
And  not  one  of  them  all  was  so  beautiful  a  being  as 
his  Marjorie,  whom  he  made  his  squaw,  whom  he  ex- 
pected to  aid  and  follow  him,  and  suffer  uncom- 
plainingly the  rough  services  of  the  common  life. 
Not  one  was  half  so  beautiful  as  Marjorie,  nor  half 
so  sweet  and  wonderful.  .  .  . 

If  such  thoughts  came  in  Lee's  villa,  they  return- 
ed with  redoubled  force  when  Trafford  found  himself 
packed  painfully  with  Marjorie  in  the  night  train  to 
Paris.  His  head  ached  with  the  rattle  and  suffoca- 
tion of  the  train,  and  he  knew  hers  must  ache  more. 
The  windows  of  the  compartment  and  the  door  were 
all  closed,  the  litigious  little  commercial  traveller  in 
shiny  grey  had  insisted  upon  that,  there  was  no  cor- 
ner seat  either  for  Marjorie  or  himself,  the  dim  big 
package  over  her  head  swayed  threateningly.  The 
green  shade  over  the  light  kept  opening  with  the 
vibration  of  the  train,  the  pallid  old  gentleman 
with  the  beard  had  twisted  himself  into  a  ghastly 
resemblance  to  a  broken-necked  corpse,  and  pressed 
his  knees  hard  and  stiffly  against  Trafford,  and  the 
small,  sniffing,  bow-legged  little  boy  beside  the  rusty 
widow  woman  in  the  corner  smelt  mysteriously  and 
penetratingly  of  Roquefort  cheese.  For  the  seven- 
teenth time  the  little  commercial  traveller  jumped 
up  with  an  unbecoming  expletive,  and  pulled  the 
shade  over  the  light,  and  the  silent  young  man  in  the 
fourth  corner  stirred  and  readjusted  his  legs. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  335 

For  a  time  until  the  crack  of  light  overhead  had 
widened  again  every  one  became  a  dark  head-dangling 
outline.  .  .  . 

He  watched  the  dim  shape  before  him  and  noted 
the  weary  droop  of  her  pose.  He  wished  he  had 
brought  water.  He  was  intolerably  thirsty,  and  his 
thirst  gave  him  the  measure  of  hers.  This  jolting 
foetid  compartment  was  a  horrible  place  for  her,  an 
intolerably  horrible  place.  And  she  was  standing  it, 
for  all  her  manifest  suffering,  with  infinite  gallantry 
and  patience.  What  a  gallant  soul  indeed  she  was ! 
Whatever  else  she  did  she  never  failed  to  rise  to  a 
challenge.  Her  very  extravagance  that  had  tried 
their  lives  so  sorely  was  perhaps  just  one  aspect  of 
that  same  quality.  It  is  so  easy  to  be  saving  if  one  is 
timid ;  so  hard  if  one  is  unaccustomed  to  fear.  How 
beautiful  she  had  shone  at  times  in  the  lights  and 
glitter  of  that  house  behind  there,  and  now  she  was 
back  in  her  weather-stained  tweeds  again,  like  a  shin- 
ing sword  thrust  back  into  a  rusty  old  sheath. 

Was  it  fair  that  she  should  come  back  into  the 
sheath  because  of  this  passion  of  his  for  a  vast 
inexhaustible  research  ? 

He  had  never  asked  himself  before  if  it  was  fair 
to  assume  she  would  follow  his  purpose  and  his  for- 
tunes. He  had  taken  that  for  granted.  And  she 
too  had  taken  that  for  granted,  which  was  so  gener- 
ously splendid  of  her.  All  her  disloyalties  had  been 
unintentional,  indeed  almost  instinctive,  breaches  of 
her  subordination  to  this  aim  which  was  his  alone. 
These  breaches  he  realized  had  been  the  reality  of 
her  nature  fighting  against  her  profoundest  resolu- 
tions. 

He  wondered  what  Lee  must  think  of  this  sort  of 
married  life.  How  ugly  and  selfish  it  must  seem  from 
that  point  of  view. 


336  MARRIAGE 

He  perceived  for  the  first  time  the  fundamental 
incongruity  of  Marjorie's  position,  she  was  made  to 
shine,  elaborately  prepared  and  trained  to  shine, 
desiring  keenly  to  shine,  and  then  imprisoned  and 
hidden  in  the  faded  obscurity  of  a  small,  poor  home. 
How  conspicuously,  how  extremely  he  must  be  want- 
ing in  just  that  sort  of  chivalry  in  which  Lee  ex- 
celled !  Those  business  men  lived  for  their  women  to 
an  extent  he  had  hitherto  scarcely  dreamt  of  do- 
ing. .  .  . 

His  want  of  chivalry  was  beyond  dispute.  And 
was  there  not  also  an  extraordinary  egotism  in  this 
concentration  upon  his  own  purposes,  a  self-esteem, 
a  vanity?  Had  her  life  no  rights?  Suppose  now  he 
were  to  give  her — two  years,  three  years  perhaps  of 
his  life — altogether.  Or  even  four.  Was  it  too  much 
to  grudge  her  four?  Solomonson  had  been  at  his 
old  theme  with  him,  a  theme  the  little  man  had  never 
relinquished  since  their  friendship  first  began  years 
ago,  possibilities  of  a  business  alliance  and  the  appli- 
cation of  a  mind  of  exceptional  freshness  and  pen- 
etration to  industrial  development.  Why  shouldn't 
that  be  tried  ?  Why  not  "  make  money"  for  a  brief 
strenuous  time,  and  then  come  back,  when  Marjorie's 
pride  and  comfort  were  secure?  .  .  . 

(Poor  dear,  how  weary  she  looked!) 

He  wondered  how  much  more  remained  of  this 
appalling  night.  It  would  have  made  so  little  dif- 
ference if  they  had  taken  the  day  train  and  travelled 
first-class.  Wasn't  she  indeed  entitled  to  travel  first- 
class?  Pictures  of  the  immense  spaciousness,  the 
softness,  cleanliness  and  dignity  of  first-class  com- 
partments appeared  in  his  mind.  .  .  . 

He  would  have  looked  at  his  watch,  but  to  get  at 
it  would  mean  disturbing  the  silent  young  man  on 
his  left. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  337 

Outside  in  the  corridor  there  broke  out  a  noisy 
dispute  about  a  missing  coupon,  a  dispute  in  that 
wonderful  language  that  is  known  to  the  facetious  as 
entente  cordiale,  between  an  Englishman  and  the 
conductor  of  the  train. 


In  Paris  there  was  a  dispute  with  an  extortionate 
cabman,  and  the  crossing  from  Dieppe  to  Newhaven 
was  rough  and  bitterly  cold.  They  were  both  ill. 
They  reached  home  very  dirty  and  weary,  and  among 
the  pile  of  letters  and  papers  on  Trafford's  desk 
was  a  big  bundle  of  Science  Note  proofs,  and  two 
letters  from  Croydon  and  Pinner  to  alter  the  hours 
of  his  lectures  for  various  plausible  and  irritating 
reasons. 

The  little  passage  looked  very  small  and  rather 
bare  as  the  door  shut  behind  them,  and  the  worn 
places  that  had  begun  to  be  conspicuous  during  the 
last  six  months,  and  which  they  had  forgotten  during 
the  Swiss  holiday,  reasserted  themselves.  The  dining- 
room,  after  spacious  rooms  flooded  with  sunshine, 
betrayed  how  dark  it  was,  and  how  small.  Those 
Bokhara  embroideries  that  had  once  shone  so  splen- 
did, now,  after  Mrs.  Lee's  rich  and  unlimited  harmo- 
nies, seemed  skimpy  and  insufficient,  mere  loin-cloths 
for  the  artistic  nakedness  of  the  home.  They  felt, 
too,  they  were  beginning  to  find  out  their  post-im- 
pressionist picture.  They  had  not  remembered  it  as 
nearly  so  crude  as  it  now  appeared.  The  hole  a 
flying  coal  had  burnt  in  the  unevenly  faded  dark-blue 
carpet  looked  larger  than  it  had  ever  done  before, 
and  was  indeed  the  only  thing  that  didn't  appear 
faded  and  shrunken. 


338  MARRIAGE 

§   15 

The  atmosphere  of  the  Lees'  villa  had  disturbed 
Marjorie's  feelings  and  ideas  even  more  than  it  had 
Trafford's.  She  came  back  struggling  to  recover 
those  high  resolves  that  had  seemed  so  secure  when 
they  had  walked  down  to  Les  Avantes.  There  was  a 
curiously  tormenting  memory  of  that  vast,  admirable 
nursery,  and  the  princely  procession  of  children  that 
would  not  leave  her  mind.  No  effort  of  her  reason 
could  reconcile  her  to  the  inferiority  of  Margharita's 
equipment.  She  had  a  detestable  craving  for  a  uni- 
form for  May.  But  May  was  going.  .  .  . 

But  indeed  she  was  not  so  sure  that  May  was 
going. 

She  was  no  longer  buoyantly  well,  she  was  full  of 
indefinable  apprehensions  of  weakness  and  failure. 
She  struggled  to  control  an  insurgence  of  emotions 
that  rose  out  of  the  deeps  of  her  being.  She  had  now, 
she  knew,  to  take  on  her  share  of  the  burden,  to 
become  one  of  the  Samurai,  to  show  her  love  no  longer 
as  a  demand  but  as  a  service.  Yet  from  day  to  day 
she  procrastinated  under  the  shadow  of  apprehended 
things;  she  forebore  to  dismiss  May,  to  buy  that 
second-hand  typewriter  she  needed,  to  take  any  ir- 
revocable step  towards  the  realization  of  the  new  way 
of  living.  She  tried  to  think  away  her  fears,  but  they 
would  not  leave  her.  She  felt  that  Trafford  watched 
her  pale  face  with  a  furtive  solicitude  and  wondered 
at  her  hesitations ;  she  tried  in  vain  to  seem  cheerful 
and  careless  in  his  presence,  with  an  anxiety,  with 
premonitions  that  grew  daily. 

There  was  no  need  to  worry  him  unduly.  .  .  . 

But  soon  the  matter  was  beyond  all  doubting. 
One  night  she  gathered  her  courage  together  sudden- 
ly and  came  down  into  his  study  in  her  dressing- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  339 

gown  with  her  hair  about  her  shoulders.  She  opened 
the  door  and  her  heart  failed  her. 

"  Rag,"  she  whispered. 

"  Yes,"  he  said  busily  from  his  desk,  without 
looking  round. 

"  I  want  to  speak  to  you,"  she  answered,  and  came 
slowly,  and  stood  beside  him  silently. 

"  Well,  old  Marjorie?"  he  said  presently,  drawing 
a  little  intricate  pattern  in  the  corner  of  his  blot- 
ting paper,  and  wondering  whether  this  was  a  matter 
of  five  pounds  or  ten. 

"  I  meant  so  well,"  she  said  and  caught  herself 
back  into  silence  again. 

He  started  at  the  thought,  at  a  depth  and  mean- 
ing in  her  voice,  turned  his  chair  about  to  look 
at  her,  and  discovered  she  was  weeping  and  chok- 
ing noiselessly.  He  stood  up  close  to  her,  moving 
very  slowly  and  silently,  his  eyes  full  of  this  new  sur- 
mise, and  now  without  word  or  gesture  from  her  he 
knew  his  thought  was  right.  "  My  dear,"  he 
whispered. 

She  turned  her  face  from  him.  "  I  meant  so 
well,"  she  sobbed.  "  My  dear !  I  meant  so  well." 
Still  with  an  averted  face  her  arms  came  out  to  him 
in  a  desperate,  unreasoning  appeal  for  love.  He 
took  her  and  held  her  close*  to  him.  "  Never  mind, 
dear,"  he  said.  Don't  mind."  Her  passion  now  was 
unconstrained.  "  I  thought — "  he  began,  and  left 
the  thing  unsaid. 

"But  your  work,"  she  said;  "your  research?" 

"I  must  give  up  research,"  he  said. 

"Oh,  my  dearest!" 

"  I  must  give  up  research,"  he  repeated.  "  I've 
been  seeing  it  for  days.  Clearer  and  clearer.  This 
dear,  just  settles  things.  Even — as  we  were  coming 


34.0  MARRIAGE 

home  in  the  train — I  was  making  up  my  mind.  At 
Vevey  I  was  talking  to  Solomonson." 

"  My  dear,"  she  whispered,  clinging  to  him. 

"  I  talked  to  Solomonson.  He  had  ideas — a 
proposal." 

"  No,"  she  said. 

"  Yes,"  he  said.    "  I've  left  the  thing  too  long." 

He  repeated.  "  I  must  give  up  research — foi 
years.  I  ought  to  have  done  it  long  before." 

"  I  had  meant  so  well,"  she  said.  "  I  meant  to 
work.  I  meant  to  deny  myself.  .  .  ." 

"  I'm  glad,"  he  whispered.  "Glad!  Why  should 
you  weep?"  It  seemed  nothing  to  him  then,  that  so 
he  should  take  a  long  farewell  to  the  rare,  sweet  air 
of  that  wonderland  his  mind  had  loved  so  dearly.  All 
he  remembered  was  that  Marjorie  was  very  dear  to 
him,  very  dear  to  him,  and  that  all  her  being  was  now 
calling  out  for  him  and  his  strength.  "  I  had  thought 
anyhow  of  giving  up  research,"  he  repeated.  "  This 
merely  decides.  It  happens  to  decide.  I  love  you,, 
dear.  I  put  my  research  at  your  feet.  Gladly.  This 
is  the  end,  and  I  do  not  care,  my  dear,  at  all.  I 
do  not  care  at  all — seeing  I  have  you.  .  .  ." 

He  stood  beside  her  for  a  moment,  and  then  sat 
down  again,  sideways,  upon  his  chair. 

"  It  isn't  you,  my  dear,  or  me,"  he  said,  "  but  life 
that  beats  us — that  beautiful,  irrational  mother.  .  . 
Life  does  not  care  for  research  or  knowledge,  but 
only  for  life.  Oh !  the  world  has  to  go  on  yet  for  tens 
of  thousands  of  years  before — before  we  are  free  for 
that.  I've  got  to  fight — as  other  men  fight.  .  .  ." 

He  thought  in  silence  for  a  time,  oddly  regardless 
of  her.  "  But  if  it  was  not  you,"  he  said,  staring  at 
the  fireplace  with  knitted  brows,  "  if  I  did  not  love 
you.  .  .  .Thank  God,  I  love  you,  dear !  Thank  God, 
our  children  are  love  children !  I  want  to  live — to  my 


THE  NEW  PHASE  341 

finger-tips,  but  if  I  didn't  love  you — oh!  love  you! 
then  I  think  now — I'd  be  glad — I'd  be  glad,  I  think, 
to  cheat  life  of  her  victory." 

"  Oh,  my  dear !"  she  cried,  and  clung  weeping  to 
him,  and  caught  at  him  and  sat  herself  upon  his 
knees,  and  put  her  arms  about  his  head,  and  kissed 
him  passionately  with  tear-salt  lips,  with  her  hair 
falling  upon  his  face. 

"  My  dear,"  she  whispered.  .  .  . 

§  15 

So  soon  as  Trafford  could  spare  an  afternoon 
amidst  his  crowded  engagements  he  went  to  talk  to 
Solomonson,  who  was  now  back  in  London.  "  Solo- 
monson,"  he  said,  "  you  were  talking  about  rubber  at 
Vevey." 

"  I  remember,"  said  Solomonson  with  a  note  of 
welcome. 

"  I've  thought  it  over." 

"   I  thought  you  would." 

"  I've  thought  things  over.  I'm  going  to  give  up 
my  professorship — and  science  generally,  and  come 
into  business — if  that  is  what  you  are  meaning." 

Solomonson  turned  his  paper-weight  round  very 
carefully  before  replying.  Then  he  said :  "  You 
mustn't  give  up  your  professorship  yet,  Trafford. 
For  the  rest— I'm  glad." 

He  reflected,  and  then  his  bright  eyes  glanced  up 
at  Trafford1.  "  I  knew,"  he  said,  "  you  would." 

"  I  didn't,"  said  Trafford.  "  Things  have  hap- 
pened since." 

"  Something  was  bound  to  happen.  You're  too 
good — for  what  it  gave  you.  I  didn't  talk  to  you 
out  there  for  nothing.  I  saw  things.  .  .  .  Let's  go 


342  MARRIAGE 

into  the  other  room,  and  smoke  and  talk  it  over."  He 
stood  up  as  he  spoke. 

"  I  thought  you  would,"  he  repeated,  leading  the 
way.  "  I  knew  you  would.  You  see, —  one  has  to. 
You  can't  get  out  of  it." 

"  It  was  all  very  well  before  you  were  married," 
said  Solomonson,  stopping  short  to  say  it,  "  but 
when  a  man's  married  he's  got  to  think.  He  can't 
go  on  devoting  himself  to  his  art  and  his  science  and 
all  that — not  if  he's  married  anything  worth  having. 
No.  Oh,  I  understand.  He's  got  to  look  about  him, 
and  forget  the  distant  prospect  for  a  bit.  I  saw 
you'd  come  to  it.  /  came  to  it.  Had  to.  I  had 
ambitions — just  as  you  have.  I've  always  had  an 
inclination  to  do  a  bit  of  research  on  my  own.  I 
like  it,  you  know.  Oh!  I  could  have  done  things. 
I'm  sure  I  could  have  done  things.  I'm  not  a  born 

money-maker.  But ."  He  became  very  close 

and  confidential.  "  It's them. 

You  said  good-bye  to  science  for  a  bit  when  you 
flopped  me  down  on  that  old  croquet-lawn,  Trafford." 
He  went  off  to  reminiscences.  "  Lord,  how  we  went 
over !  No  more  aviation  for  me,  Trafford !" 

He  arranged  chairs,  and  produced  cigars.  "  After 
all — this  of  course — it's  interesting.  Once  you  get 
into  the  movement  of  it,  it  takes  hold  of  you.  It's  a 
game." 

"  I've  thought  over  all  you  said,"  Trafford  be- 
gan, using  premeditated  phrases.  "Bluntly — I  want 
three  thousand  a  year,  and  I  don't  make  eight  hun- 
dred. It's  come  home  to  me.  I'm  going  to  have 
another  child." 

Solomonson  gestulated  a  congratulation. 

"  All  the  same,  I  hate  dropping  research.  It's 
stuff  I'm  made  to  do.  About  that,  Solomonson,  I'm 
almost  superstitious.  I  could  say  I  had  a  call.  .  .  . 


THE  NEW  PHASE  343 

It's  the  maddest  state  of  affairs !  Now  that  I'm  do- 
ing absolutely  my  best  work  for  mankind,  work  I 
firmly  believe  no  one  else  can  do,  I  just  manage  to 
get  six  hundred — nearly  two  hundred  of  my  eight 
hundred  is  my  own.  What  does  the  world  think  I 
could  do  better — that  would  be  worth  four  times  as 
much." 

"  The  world  doesn't  think  anything  at  all  about 
it,"  said  Solomonson. 

"Suppose  it  did!" 

The  thought  struck  Sir  Rupert.  He  knitted  his 
brows  and  looked  hard  obliquely  at  the  smoke  of  his 
cigar.  "  Oh,  it  won't,"  he  said,  rejecting  a  disagree- 
able idea.  "  There  isn't  any  world — not  in  that  sense. 
That's  the  mistake  you  make,  Trafford." 

"  It's  not  what  your  work  is  worth,"  he  explained. 
"  It's  what  your  advantages  can  get  for  you.  Peo- 
ple are  always  going  about  supposing — just  what 
you  suppose — that  people  ought  to  get  paid  in  pro- 
portion to  the  good  they  do.  It's  forgetting  what 
the  world  is,  to  do  that.  Very  likely  some  day  civili- 
zation will  get  to  that,  but  it  hasn't  got  to  it  yet.  It 
isn't  going  to  get  to  it  for  hundreds  and  hundreds  of 
years." 

His  manner  became  confidential.  "  Civilization's 
just,  a  fight,  Trafford — just  as  savagery  is  a  fight, 
and  being  a  wild  beast  is  a  fight, — only  you  have 
paddeder  gloves  on  and  there's  more  rules.  We  aren't 
out  for  everybody,  we're  out  for  ourselves — and  a  few 
friends  perhaps — within  limits.  It's  no  good  hurry- 
ing ahead  and  pretending  civilization's  something 
else,  when  it  isn't.  That's  where  all  these  socialists 
and  people  come  a  howler.  Oh,  /  know  the  Socialists. 
I  see  'em  at  my  wife's  At  Homes.  They  come  along 
with  the  literary  people  and  the  artists'  wives  and  the 
actors  and  actresses,  and  none  of  them  take  much 


344  MARRIAGE 

account  of  me  because  I'm  just  a  business  man  and 
rather  dark  and  short,  and  so  I  get  a  chance  of  look- 
ing at  them  from  the  side  that  isn't  on  show  while 
the  other's  turned  to  the  women,  and  they're  just  as 
fighting  as  the  rest  of  us,  only  they  humbug  more  and 
they  don't  seem  to  me  to  have  a  decent  respect  for 
any  of  the  common  rules.  And  that's  about  what  it 
all  comes  to,  Trafford." 

Sir  Rupert  paused,  and  Trafford  was  about  to 
speak  when  the  former  resumed  again,  his  voice  very 
earnest,  his  eyes  shining  with  purpose.  He  liked 
Trafford,  and  he  was  doing  his  utmost  to  make  a 
convincing  confession  of  the  faith  that  was  in  him. 
"  It's  when  it  comes  to  the  women,"  said  Sir  Rupert, 
"  that  one  finds  it  out.  That's  where  you've  found  it 
out.  You  say,  I'm  going  to  devote  my  life  to  the 
service  of  Humanity  in  general.  You'll  find  Human- 
ity in  particular,  in  the  shape  of  all  the  fine,  beauti- 
ful, delightful  and  desirable  women  you  come  across, 
preferring  a  narrower  turn  of  devotion.  See?  That's 
all.  Caeteris  paribus,  of  course.  That's  what  I 
found  out,  and  that's  what  you've  found  out,  and 
that's  what  everybody  with  any  sense  in  his  head 
finds  out,  and  there  you  are." 

"  You  put  it — graphically,"  said  Trafford. 

"  I  feel  it  graphically.  I  may  be  all  sorts  of 
things,  but  I  do  know  a  fact  when  I  see  it.  I'm  here 
with  a  few  things  I  want  and  a  woman  or  so  I  have 
and  want  to  keep,  and  the  kids  upstairs,  bless  'em ! 
and  I'm  in  league  with  all  the  others  who  want  the 
same  sort  of  things.  Against  any  one  or  anything 
that  upsets  us.  We  stand  by  the  law  and  each  other, 
and  that's  what  it  all  amounts  to.  That's  as  far 
as  my  patch  of  Humanity  goes.  Humanity  at  large ! 
Humanity  be  blowed !  Look  at  it !  It  isn't  that  I'm 
hostile  to  Humanity,  mind  you,  but  that  I'm  not  dis- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  345 

posed  to  go  under  as  I  should  do  if  I  didn't  say  that. 
So  I  say  it.  And  that's  about  all  it  is,  and  there  you 
are. 

H>  regarded  Trafford  over  his  cigar,  drawing 
fiercely  at  it  for  some  moments.  Then  seeing  Traf- 
ford on  the  point  of  speaking,  he  snatched  it  from 
his  lips,  demanded  silence  by  waving  it  at  his  hearer, 
and  went  on. 

"  I  say  all  this  in  order  to  dispose  of  any  idea 
that  you  can  keep  up  the  open-minded  tell-every- 
body-every-thing  scientific  attitude  if  you  come  into 
business.  You  can't.  Put  business  in  two  words 
and  what  is  it?  Keeping  something  from  somebody 
else,  and  making  him  pay  for  it — " 

"  Oh,  look  here!"  protested  Trafford.  "  That's 
not  the  whole  of  business." 

"  There's  making  him  want  it,  of  course,  adver- 
tisement and  all  that,  but  that  falls  under  making 
him  pay  for  it,  really." 

"  But  a  business  man  organizes  public  services, 
consolidates,  economizes." 

Sir  Rupert  made  his  mouth  look  very  wide  by 
sucking  in  the  corners.  "  Incidentally,"  he  said, 
and  added  after  a  judicious  pause:  "  Sometimes.  .  . 
I  thought  we  were  talking  of  making  money." 

"  Go  on,"  said  Trafford. 

"  You  set  me  thinking,"  said  Solomonson.  "  It's 
the  thing  I  always  like  about  you.  I  tell  you, 
Trafford,  I  don't  believe  that  the  majority  of  people 
who  make  money  help  civilization  forward  any  more 
than  the  smoke  that  comes  out  of  the  engine  helps 
the  train  forward.  If  you  put  it  to  me,  I  don't.  I've 
got  no  illusions  of  that  sort.  They're  about  as  much 
help  as — fat.  They  accumulate  because  things  hap- 
pen to  be  arranged  so." 


346  MARRIAGE 

"  Things  will  be  arranged  better  some  day." 

"  They  aren't  arranged  better  now.  Grip  that ! 
Now,  it's  a  sort  of  paradox.  If  you've  got  big  gifts 
and  you  choose  to  help  forward  the  world,  if  you 
choose  to  tell  all  you  know  and  give  away  everything 
you  can  do  in  the  way  of  work,  you've  got  to  give  up 
the  ideas  of  wealth  and  security,  and  that  means  fine 
women  and  children.  You've  got  to  be  a  deprived 
sort  of  man.  'All  right,'  you  say,  'That's  me !'  But 
how  about  your  wife  being  a  deprived  sort  of  woman  ? 
Eh?  That's  where  it  gets  you!  And  meanwhile, 
you  know,  while  you  make  your  sacrifices  and  do  your 
researches,  there'll  be  little  mean  sharp  active  beasts 
making  money  all  over  you  like  maggots  on  a  cheese. 
And  if  everybody  who'd  got  gifts  and  altruistic  ideas 
gave  themselves  up  to  it,  then  evidently  only  the 
mean  and  greedy  lot  would  breed  and  have  the  glory. 

They'd  get  everything.  Every  blessed  thing. 
There  wouldn't  be  an  option  they  didn't  hold.  And  the 
other  chaps  would  produce  the  art  and  the  science 
and  the  literature,  as  far  as  the  men  who'd  got  hold 
of  things  would  let  'em,  and  perish  out  of  the 
earth  altogether.  .  .  . 
There  you  are !  Still,  that's  how  things  are  made.  ." 

"  But  it  isn't  worth  it.  It  isn't  worth  extinguish- 
ing oneself  in  order  to  make  a  world  for  those  others, 
anyhow.  Them  and  their  children.  Is  it?  Eh? 
It's  like  building  a  temple  for  flies  to  buzz  in.  ... 
There  is  such  a  thing  as  a  personal  side  to  Eugenics, 
you  know." 

Solomonson  reflected  over  the  end  of  his  cigar. 
"  It  isn't  good  enough,"  he  concluded. 

"  You're  infernally  right,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Very  well,"  said  Solomonson,  "  and  now  we  can 
get  to  business." 


THE  NEW  PHASE  347 

§  17 

The  immediate  business  was  the  systematic  exploi- 
tation of  the  fact  that  Trafford  had  worked  out  the 
problem  of  synthesizing  indiarubber.  He  had  done 
so  with  an  entire  indifference  to  the  commercial  pos- 
sibilities of  the  case,  because  he  had  been  irritated  by 
the  enormous  publicity  given  to  Behrens'  assertion 
that  he  had  achieved  this  long-sought  end.  Of  course 
the  production  of  artificial  rubbers  and  rubber-like 
substances  had  been  one  of  the  activities  of  the 
synthetic  chemist  for  many  years,  from  the  appear- 
ance of  Tilden's  isoprene  rubber  onward,  and  there 
was  already  a  formidable  list  of  collaterals,  dimethy- 
butadiene,  and  so  forth,  by  which  the  coveted  goal 
could  be  approached.  Behrens  had  boldly  added  to 
this  list  as  his  own  a  number  of  variations  upon  a 
theme  of  Trafford's,  originally  designed  to  settle  cer- 
tain curiosities  about  elasticity.  Behrens'  products 
were  not  only  more  massively  rubber-like  than  any- 
thing that  had  gone  before  them,  but  also  extremely 
cheap  to  produce,  and  his  bold  announcement  of  suc- 
cess had  produced  a  check  in  rubber  sales  and  wide- 
spread depression  in  the  quiveringly  sensitive  market 
of  plantation  shares.  Solomonson  had  consulted 
Trafford  about  this  matter  at  Vevey,  and  had  heard 
with  infinite  astonishment  that  Trafford  had  already 
roughly  prepared  and  was  proposing  to  complete  and 
publish,  unpatented  and  absolutely  unprotected,  first 
a  smashing  demonstration  of  the  unsoundness  of 
Behrens'  claim  and  then  a  lucid  exposition  of  just 
what  had  to  be  done  and  what  could  be  done  to  make 
an  indiarubber  absolutely  indistinguishable  from  the 
natural  product.  The  business  man  could  not  be- 
lieve his  ears. 

"  My  dear  chap,  positively — you  mustn't,"  Solo- 


348  MARRIAGE 

monson  had  screamed,  and  he  had  opened  his  finger 
and  humped  his  shoulders  and  for  all  his  public 
school  and  university  training  lapsed  undisguisedly 
into  the  Oriental.  "  Don't  you  see  all  you  are  throw- 
ing away?"  he  squealed. 

"  I  suppose  it's  our  quality  to  throw  such  things 
away,"  said  Trafford,  when  at  last  Solomonson's 
point  of  view  became  clear  to  him.  They  had  em- 
barked upon  a  long  rambling  discussion  of  that  issue 
of  publication,  a  discussion  they  were  now  taking 
up  again.  "  When  men  dropped  that  idea  of  con- 
cealing knowledge,  alchemist  gave  place  to  chemist," 
said  Trafford,  "  and  all  that  is  worth  having  in  mod- 
ern life,  all  that  makes  it  better  and  safer  and  more 
hopeful  than  the  ancient  life,  began*" 

"  My  dear  fellow,"  said  Solomonson,  "I  know,  I 
know.  But  to  give  away  the  synthesis  of  rubber !  To 
just  shove  it  out  of  the  window  into  the  street !  Gare 
Veau\  O!  And  when  you  could  do  with  so  much 
too!".  .  .  . 

Now  they  resumed  the  divergent  threads  of  that 
Vevey  talk. 

Solomonson  had  always  entertained  the  warmest 
friendship  and  admiration  for  Trafford,  and  it  was 
no  new  thing  that  he  should  desire  a  business  co-oper- 
ation. He  had  been  working  for  that  in  the  old  days 
at  Riplings ;  he  had  never  altogether  let  the  possibil- 
ity drop  out  of  sight  between  them  in  spite  of  Traf- 
ford's  repudiations.  He  believed  himself  to  be  a 
scientific  man  turned  to  business,  but  indeed  his  whole 
passion  was  for  organization  and  finance.  He  knew 
he  could  do  everything  but  originate,  and  in  Traf- 
ford he  recognized  just  that  rare  combination  of  an 
obstinate  and  penetrating  simplicity  with  construc- 
tive power  which  is  the  essential  blend  in  the  making 
pf  great  intellectual  initiatives.  To  Trafford  belong- 


THE  NEW  PHASE  349 

ed  the  secret  of  novel  and  unsuspected  solutions; 
what  were  fixed  barriers  and  unsurmountable  condi- 
tions to  trained  investigators  and  commonplace  minds, 
would  yield  to  his  gift  of  magic  inquiry.  He  could 
startle  the  accepted  error  into  self-betrayal.  Other 
men  might  play  the  game  of  business  infinitely  better 
than  he — Solomons  on  knew,  indeed,  quite  well  that 
he  himself  could  play  the  game  infinitely  better  than 
Trafford — but  it  rested  with  Trafford  by  right  de- 
vine  of  genius  to  alter  the  rules.  If  only  he  could  be 
induced  to  alter  the  rules  secretly,  unostentatiously, 
on  a  business  footing,  instead  of  making  catastrophic 
plunges  into  publicity!  And  everything  that  had 
made  Trafford  up  to  the  day  of  his  marriage  was 
antagonistic  to  such  strategic  reservations.  The 
servant  of  science  has  as  such  no  concern  with  person- 
al consequences;  his  business  is  the  steady,  relent- 
less clarification  of  knowledge.  The  human  affairs 
he  changes,  the  wealth  he  makes  or  destroys,  are  no 
concern  of  his;  once  these  things  weigh  with  him, 
become  primary,  he  has  lost  his  honour  as  a  scientific 
man. 

"  But  you  must  think  of  consequences,"  Solomon- 
son  had  cried  during  those  intermittent  talks  at 
Vevey.  "  Here  you  are,  shying  this  cheap  synthetic 
rubber  of  yours  into  the  world — for  it's  bound  to  be 
cheap !  any  one  can  see  that — like  a  bomb  into  a  mar- 
ket-place. What's  the  good  of  saying  you  don't  care 
about  the  market-place,  that  your  business  is  just 
to  make  bombs  and  drop  them  out  of  the  window? 
You  smash  up  things  just  the  same.  Why!  you'll 
ruin  hundreds  and  thousands  of  people,  people  living 
on  rubber  shares,  people  working  in  plantations,  old, 
in  adapt  able  workers  in  rubber  works.  .  .  ." 

Sir  Rupert  was  now  still  a  little  incredulous  of 
Trafford's  change  of  purpose,  and  for  a  time  argueol 


350  MARRIAGE 

conceded  points.  Then  slowly  he  came  to  the  con- 
ditions and  methods  of  the  new  relationship.  He 
sketched  out  a  scheme  of  co-operation  and  under- 
standings between  his  firm  and  Trafford,  between 
them  both  and  his  associated  group  in  the  city. 

Behrens  was  to  have  rope  and  produce  his  slump 
in  plantation  shares,  then  Trafford  was  to  publish 
his  criticism  of  Behrens,  reserving  only  that  catalytic 
process  which  was  his  own  originality,  the  process 
that  was  to  convert  the  inert,  theoretically  correct 
synthetic  rubber,  with  a  mysterious  difference  in  the 
quality  of  its  phases,  into  the  real  right  thing.  With 
Behrens  exploded,  plantation  shares  would  recover, 
and  while  their  friends  in  the  city  manipulated  that, 
Trafford  would  resign  his  professorship  and  engage 
himself  to  an  ostentatious  promotion  syndicate  for 
the  investigation  of  synthetic  rubber.  His  discovery 
would  follow  immediately  the  group  had  cleared  itself 
of  plantation  shares ;  indeed  he  could  begin  planning 
the  necessary  works  forthwith ;  the  large  scale  opera- 
tions in  the  process  were  to  be  protected  as  far  as 
possible  by  patents,  but  its  essential  feature,  the 
addition  of  a  specific  catalytic  agent,  could  be  safely 
dealt  with  as  a  secret  process. 

"  I  hate  secrecy,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Business,"  interjected  Solomonson,  and  went  on 
with  his  exposition  of  the  relative  advantages  of 
secrecy  and  patent  rights.  It  was  all  a  matter  of 
just  how  many  people  you  had  to  trust.  As  that 
number  increased,  the  more  and  more  advisable  did 
it  become  to  put  your  cards  on  the  table  and  risk  the 
complex  uncertain  protection  of  the  patent  law. 
They  went  into  elaborate  calculations,  clerks  wero 
called  upon  to  hunt  up  facts  and  prices,  and  the  table 
was  presently  littered  with  waste  arithmetic. 


THE  NEW  PHASE  351 

"  I  believe  we  can  do  the  stuff  at  tenpence  a 
pound,"  said  Solomonson,  leaning  back  in  his  chair 
at  last,  and  rattling  his  fountain  pen  between  his 
teeth,  "  so  soon,  that  is,  as  we  deal  in  quantity.  Ten- 
pence!  We  can  lower  the  price  and  spread  the  mar- 
ket, sixpence  by  sixpence.  In  the  end — there  won't 
be  any  more  plantations.  Have  to  grow  tea.  ...  I 
say,  let's  have  an  invalid  dinner  of  chicken  and  cham- 
pagne, and  go  on  with  this.  It's  fascinating.  You 
can  telephone." 

They  dined  together,  and  Solomonson  on  cham- 
pagne rather  than  chicken.  His  mind,  which  had 
never  shown  an  instant's  fatigue,  began  to  glow  and 
sparkle.  This  enterprise,  he  declared,  was  to  be  only 
the  first  of  a  series  of  vigorous  exploitations.  The 
whole  thing  warmed  him.  He  would  rather  make  ten 
thousand  by  such  developments,  than  a  hundred 
thousand  by  mere  speculation.  Trafford  had  but 
scratched  the  surface  of  his  mine  of  knowledge. 
"  Let's  think  of  other  things,"  said  Sir  Rupert  Solo- 
monson. "  Diamonds !  No !  They've  got  too  many 
tons  stowed  away  already.  A  diamond  now — it's  an 
absolutely  artificial  value.  At  any  time  a  new  dis- 
covery and  one  wild  proprietor  might  bust  that  show. 
Lord ! — diamonds  !  Metals  ?  Of  course  you've  work- 
ed the  colloids  chiefly.  I  suppose  there's  been  more 
done  in  metals  and  alloys  than  anywhere.  There's 
a  lot  of  other  substances.  Business  has  hardly  be- 
gun to  touch  substances  yet,  you  know,  Trafford — 
flexible  glass,  for  example,  and  things  like  that.  So 
far  we've  always  taken  substances  for  granted.  On 
our  side,  I  mean.  It's  extraordinary  how  narrow  the 
outlook  of  business  and  finance  is — still.  It  never 
seems  to  lead  to  things,  never  thinks  ahead.  In  this 
case  of  rubber,  for  example — 


352  MARRIAGE 

"  When  men  fight  for  their  own  hands  and  for 
profit  and  position  in  the  next  ten  years  or  so,  I 
suppose  they  tend  to  become  narrow." 

"  I  suppose  they  must."  Sir  Rupert's  face  glowed 
with  a  new  idea,  and  his  voice  dropped  a  little  lower. 
"  But  what  a  pull  they  get,  Trafford,  if  perhaps— 
they  don't,  eh?" 

"  No,"  said  Trafford  with  a  smile  and  a  sigh, 
"  the  other  sort  gets  the  pull." 

"  Not  this  time,"  said  Solomonson ;  "  not  with 
you  to  spot  processes  and  me  to  figure  out  the 
cost—  "  he  waved  his  hands  to  the  litter  that  had 
been  removed  to  a  side  table —  "and  generally  see 
how  the  business  end  of  things  is  going.  .  .  ." 


BOOK  THE  THIRD 
MARJORIE  AT  LONELY  HUT 


CHAPTER  THE  FIRST 

SUCCESSES 

§1 

I  FIND  it  hard  to  trace  the  accumulation  of  moods 
and  feelings  that  led  Trafford  and  Marjorie  at  last 
to  make  their  extraordinary  raid  upon  Labrador. 
In  a  week  more  things  happen  in  the  thoughts  of 
such  a  man  as  Trafford,  changes,  revocations,  de- 
flections, than  one  can  chronicle  in  the  longest  of 
novels.  I  have  already  in  an  earlier  passage  of  this 
story  sought  to  give  an  image  of  the  confused  con- 
tent of  a  modern  human  mind,  but  that  pool  was  to 
represent  a  girl  of  twenty,  and  Trafford  now  was 
a  man  of  nearly  thirty-five,  and  touching  life  at  a 
hundred  points  for  one  of  the  undergraduate  Mar- 
jorie's.  Perhaps  that  made  him  less  confused,  but  it 
certainly  made  him  fuller.  Let  me  attempt  therefore 
only  the  broad  outline  of  his  changes  of  purpose  and 
activity  until  I  come  to  the  crucial  mood  that  made 
these  two  lives  a  little  worth  telling  about,  amidst 
the  many  thousands  of  such  lives  that  people  are  liv- 
ing to-day.  .  .  . 

It  took  him  seven  years  from  his  conclusive  agree- 
ment with  Solomons  on  to  become  a  rich  and  influen- 
tial man.  It  took  him  only  seven  years,  because  al- 
ready by  the  mere  accidents  of  intellectual  interest 
he  was  in  possession  of  knowledge  of  the  very  great- 
est economic  importance,  and  because  Solomonson 
was  full  of  that  practical  loyalty  and  honesty  that 
distinguishes  his  race.  I  think  that  in  any  case 
Trafford's  vigor  and  subtlety  of  mind  would  have 
achieved  the  prosperity  he  had  found  necessary  to 

355 


356  MARRIAGE 

himself,  but  it  might  have  been,  under  less  favorable 
auspices,  a  much  longer  and  more  tortuous  struggle. 
Success  and  security  were  never  so  abundant  nor  so 
easily  attained  by  men  with  capacity  and  a  sense  of 
proportion  as  they  are  in  the  varied  and  flexible 
world  of  to-day.  We  live  in  an  affluent  age  with  a 
nearly  incredible  continuous  fresh  increment  of  power 
pouring  in  from  mechanical  invention,  and  compared 
with  our  own,  most  other  periods  have  been  meagre 
and  anxious  and  hard-up  times.  Our  problems  are 
constantly  less  the  problems  of  submission  and  con- 
solation and  continually  more  problems  of  opportu- 
nity. .  .  . 

Trafford  found  the  opening  campaign,  the  oper- 
ation with  the  plantation  shares  and  his  explosion 
of  Behrens'  pretensions  extremely  uncongenial.  It 
left  upon  his  mind  a  confused  series  of  memories  of 
interviews  and  talks  in  offices  for  the  most  part  dingy 
and  slovenly,  of  bales  of  press-cuttings  and  blue- 
pencilled  financial  publications,  of  unpleasing  en- 
counters with  a  number  of  bright-eyed,  flushed,  ex- 
citable and  extremely  cunning  men,  of  having  to  be 
reserved  and  limited  in  his  talk  upon  all  occasions, 
and  of  all  the  worst  aspects  of  Solomonson.  All 
that  part  of  the  new  treatment  of  life  that  was  to 
make  him  rich  gave  him  sensations  as  though  he  had 
ceased  to  wash  himself  mentally,  until  he  regretted 
his  old  life  in  his  laboratory  as  a  traveller  in  a  crowd- 
ed night  train  among  filthy  people  might  regret  the 
bathroom  he  had  left  behind  him.  .  .  . 

But  the  development  of  his  manufacture  of  rub- 
ber was  an  entirely  different  business,  and  for  a  time 
profoundly  interesting.  It  took  him  into  a  new  as- 
tonishing world,  the  world  of  large-scale  manufacture 
and  industrial  organization.  The  actual  planning 
of  the  works  was  not  in  itself  anything  essentially 


SUCCESSES  357 

new  to  him.  So  far  as  all  that  went  it  was  scarcely 
more  than  the  problem  of  arranging  an  experiment 
upon  a  huge  and  permanent  scale,  and1  all  that  quick 
ingenuity,  that  freshness  and  directness  of  mind  that 
had  made  his  purely  scientific  work  so  admirable  had 
ample  and  agreeable  scope.  Even  the  importance  of 
cost  and  economy  at  every  point  in  the  process  in- 
volved no  system  of  considerations  that  was  alto- 
gether novel  to  him.  The  British  investigator  knows 
only  too  well  the  necessity  for  husbanded  material 
and  inexpensive  substitutes.  But  strange  factors 
came  in,  a  new  region  of  interest  was  opened  with 
the  fact  that  instead  of  one  experimenter  working 
with  the  alert  responsive  assistance  of  Durgan,  a  mul- 
titude of  human  beings- — even  in  the  first  drafts  of 
his  project  they  numbered  already  two  hundred,  be- 
fore the  handling  and  packing  could  be  considered — 
had  to  watch,  control,  assist  or  perform  every  stage 
in  a  long  elaborate  synthesis.  For  the  first  time  in 
his  life  Trafford  encountered  the  reality  of  Labour, 
as  it  is  known  to  the  modern  producer. 

It  will  be  difficult  in  the  future,  when  things  now 
subtly  or  widely  separated  have  been  brought  to- 
gether by  the  receding  perspectives  of  time,  for  the 
historian  to  realize  just  how  completely  out  of  the 
thoughts  of  such  a  young  man  as  Trafford  the  mil- 
lions of  people  who  live  and  die  in  organized  produc- 
tive industry  had  been.  That  vast  world  of  toil  and 
weekly  anxiety,  ill-trained  and  stupidly  directed 
effort  and  mental  and  moral  feebleness,  had  been  as 
much  beyond  the  living  circle  of  his  experience  as  the 
hosts  of  Genghis  Khan  or  the  social  life  of  the  For- 
bidden City.  Consider  the  limitations  of  his  world. 
In  all  his  life  hitherto  he  had  never  been  beyond  a 
certain  prescribed  area  of  London's  jhnmensities, 
except  by  the  most  casual  and  uninstructive  straying. 


358  MARRIAGE 

He  knew  Chelsea  and  Kensington  and  the  north  bank 
and  (as  a  boy)  Battersea  Park,  and  all  the  strip 
between  Kensington  and  Charing  Cross,  with  some 
scraps  of  the  Strand  as  far  as  the  Law  Courts,  a  shop 
or  so  in  Tottenham  Court  Road  and  fragments  about 
the  British  Museum  and  Holborn  and  Regent's  Park, 
a  range  up  Edgware  Road  to  Maida  Vale,  the  routes 
west  and  south-west  through  Uxbridge  and  Putney 
to  the  country,  and  Wimbledon  Common  and  Putney 
Heath.  He  had  never  been  on  Hampstead  Heath  nor 
visited  the  Botanical  Gardens  nor  gone  down  the 
Thames  below  London  Bridge,  nor  seen  Sydenham 
nor  Epping  Forest  nor  the  Victoria  Park.  Take  a 
map  and  blot  all  he  knew  and  see  how  vast  is  the  area 
left  untouched.  All  industrial  London,  all  whole- 
sale London,  great  oceans  of  human  beings  fall  into 
that  excluded  area.  The  homes  he  knew  were  com- 
fortable homes,  the  poor  he  knew  were  the  parasitic 
and  dependent  poor  of  the  West,  the  shops,  good 
retail  shops,  the  factories  for  the  most  part  engaged 
in  dressmaking. 

Of  course  he  had  been  informed  about  this  vast 
rest  of  London.  He  knew  that  as  a  matter  of  fact 
it  existed,  was  populous,  portentous,  puzzling.  He 
had  heard  of  "slums,"  read  "Tales  of  Mean  Streets," 
and  marvelled  in  a  shallow  transitory  way  at  such 
wide  wildernesses  of  life,  apparently  supported  by 
nothing  at  all  in  a  state  of  grey,  darkling  but  pro- 
lific discomfort.  Like  the  princess  who  wondered  why 
the  people  having  no  bread  did  not  eat  cake,  he  could 
never  clearly  understand  why  the  population  re- 
mained there,  did  not  migrate  to  more  attractive  sur- 
roundings. He  had  discussed  the  problems  of  those 
wildernesses  as  young  men  do,  rather  confidently, 
very  ignorantly,  had  dismissed  them,  recurred  to 
them,  and  forgotten  them  amid'st  a  press  of  other 


SUCCESSES  359 

interests,  but  now  it  all  suddenly  became  real  to  him 
with  the  intensity  of  a  startling  and  intimate  contact. 
He  discovered  this  limitless,  unknown,  greater  Lon- 
don, this  London  of  the  majority,  as  if  he  had  never 
thought  of  it  before.  He  went  out  to  inspect  favour- 
able sites  in  regions  whose  very  names  were  unfamiliar 
to  him,  travelled  on  dirty  little  intraurban  railway 
lines  to  hitherto  unimagined  railway  stations,  found 
parks,  churches,  workhouses,  institutions,  public- 
houses,  canals,  factories,  gas-works,  warehouses, 
foundries  and  sidings,  amidst  a  multitudinous 
dinginess  of  mean  houses,  shabby  back-yards,  and 
ill-kept  streets.  There  seemed  to  be  no  limits  to  this 
thread-bare  side  of  London,  it  went  on  northward, 
eastward,  and  over  the  Thames  southward,  for  mile 
after  mile — endlessly.  The  factories  and  so  forth 
clustered  in  lines  and  banks  upon  the  means  of  com- 
munication, the  homes  stretched  between,  and  infini- 
tude of  parallelograms  of  grimy  boxes  with  public- 
houses  at  the  corners  and  churches  and  chapels  in 
odd  places,  towering  over  which  rose  the  council 
schools,  big,  blunt,  truncated-looking  masses,  the 
means  to  an  education  as  blunt  and  truncated,  born 
of  tradition  and  confused  purposes,  achieving  by  ac- 
cident what  they  achieve  at  all. 

And  about  this  sordid-looking  wilderness  went  a 
population  that  seemed  at  first  as  sordid.  It  was  in 
no  sense  a  tragic  population.  But  it  saw  little  of 
the  sun,  felt  the  wind  but  rarely,  and  so  had  a  white, 
dull  skin  that  looked  degenerate  and  ominous  to  a 
West-end  eye.  It  was  not  naked  nor  barefooted,  but 
it  wore  cheap  clothes  that  were  tawdry  when  new, 
and  speedily  became  faded,  discoloured,  dusty,  and 
draggled.  It  was  slovenly  and  almost  wilfully  ugly 
in  its  speech  and  gestures.  And  the  food  it  ate  was 
rough  and  coarse  if  abundant,  the  eggs  it  consumed 


360  MARRIAGE 

"tasted" — everything  "tasted";  its  milk,  its  beer,  its 
bread  was  degraded  by  base  adulterations,  its  meat 
was  hacked  red  stuff  that  hung  in  the  dusty  air  until 
it  was  sold;  east  of  the  city  Traiford  could  find  no 
place  where  by  his  standards  he  could  get  a  tolerable 
meal  tolerably  served.  The  entertainment  of  this 
eastern  London  was  jingle,  its  religion  clap-trap,  its 
reading  feeble  and  sensational  rubbish  without  kind- 
liness or  breadth.  And  if  this  great  industrial  multi- 
tude was  neither  tortured  nor  driven  nor  cruelly 
treated — as  the  slaves  and  common  people  of  other 
days  have  been — yet  it  was  universally  anxious,  per- 
petually anxious  about  urgent  small  necessities  and 
petty  dissatisfying  things.  .  .  . 

That  was  the  general  effect  of  this  new  region  in 
which  he  had  sought  out  and  found  the  fortunate 
site  for  his  manufacture  of  rubber,  and  against  this 
background  it  was  that  he  had  now  to  encounter  a 
crowd  of  selected  individuals,  and  weld  them  into  a 
harmonious  and  successful  "process."  They  came  out 
from  their  millions  to  him,  dingy,  clumsy,  and  at 
first  it  seemed  without  any  individuality.  Insensibly 
they  took  on  character,  rounded  off  by  unaccustomed 
methods  into  persons  as  marked  and  distinctive  as 
any  he  had  known. 

There  was  Dowd,  for  instance,  the  technical  as- 
sistant, whom  he  came  to  call  in  his  private  thoughts 
Dowd  the  Disinherited.  Dowd  had  seemed  a  rather 
awkward,  potentially  insubordinate  young  man  of 
unaccountably  extensive  and  curiously  limited  at- 
tainments. He  had  begun  his  career  in  a  crowded 
home  behind  and  above  a  baker's  shop  in  Hoxton,  he 
had  gone  as  a  boy  into  the  works  of  a  Clerkenwell 
electric  engineer,  and  there  he  had  developed  that 
craving  for  knowledge  which  is  so  common  in  poor 
men  of  the  energetic  type.  He  had  gone  to  classes, 


SUCCESSES  361 

read1  with  a  sort  of  fury,  feeding  his  mind  on  the 
cheap  and  adulterated  instruction  of  grant-earning 
crammers  and  on  stale,  meretricious  and  ill-chosen 
books;  his  mental  food  indeed  was  the  exact  par- 
allel of  the  rough,  abundant,  cheap  and  nasty  gro- 
ceries and  meat  that  gave  the  East-ender  his  spots 
and  dyspeptic  complexion,  the  cheap  text-books 
were  like  canned  meat  and  dangerous  with  intellec- 
tual ptomaines,  the  rascally  encyclopaedias  like 
weak  and  whitened  bread,  and  Dowd's  mental 
complexion,  too,  was  leaden  and  spotted.  Yet  es- 
sentially he  wasn't,  Trafford  found,  by  any  means 
bad  stuff;  where  his  knowledge  had  had  a  chance  of 
touching  reality  it  became  admirable,  and  he  was  full 
of  energy  in  his  work  and  a  sort  of  honest  zeal  about 
the  things  of  the  mind.  The  two  men  grew  from  an 
acute  mutual  criticism  into  a  mutual  respect. 

At  first  it  seemed  to  Trafford  that  when  he  met 
Dowd  he  was  only  meeting  Dowd,  but  a  time  came 
when  it  seemed  to  him  that  in  meeting  Dowd  he  was 
meeting  all  that  vast  new  England  outside  the  range 
of  ruling-class  dreams,  that  multitudinous  greater 
England,  cheaply  treated,  rather  out  of  health,  an- 
gry, energetic  and  now  becoming  intelligent  and 
critical,  that  England  which  organized  industrial- 
ism has  created.  There  were  nights  when  he  thought 
for  hours  about  Dowd.  Other  figures  grouped  them- 
selves round  him — Markham,  the  head  clerk,  the 
quintessence  of  East-end  respectability,  who  saw  to 
the  packing;  Miss  Peckover,  an  ex-telegraph  oper- 
ator, a  woman  so  entirely  reliable  and  unobservant 
that  the  most  betraying  phase  of  the  secret  process 
could  be  confidently  entrusted  to  her  hands.  Behind 
them  were  clerks,  workmen,  motor-van  men,  work- 
girls,  a  crowd  of  wage-earners,  from  amidst  which 
some  individual  would  assume  temporary  importance 


362  MARRIAGE 

and  interest  by  doing  something  wrong,  getting  into 
trouble,  becoming  insubordinate,  and  having  con- 
tributed a  little  vivid  story  to  Trafford's  gathering 
impressions  of  life,  drop  back  again  into  undistin- 
guished subordination. 

Dowd  became  at  last  entirely  representative. 

When  first  Trafford  looked  Dowd  in  the  eye,  he 
met  something  of  the  hostile  interest  one  might  en- 
counter in  a  swordsman  ready  to  begin  a  duel.  There 
was  a  watchfulness,  an  immense  reserve.  They  dis- 
cussed the  work  and  the  terms  of  their  relationship, 
and  all  the  while  Trafford  felt  there  was  something 
almost  threateningly  not  mentioned. 

Presently  he  learnt  from  a  Silvertown  employer 
what  that  concealed  aspect  was.  Dowd  was  "  that 
sort  of  man  who  makes  trouble,"  disposed  to  strike 
rather  than  not  upon  a  grievance,  with  a  taste  for 
open-air  meetings,  a  member,  obstinately  adherent 
in  spite  of  friendly  remonstrance,  of  the  Social  Dem- 
ocratic Party.  This  in  spite  of  his  clear  duty  to  a 
wife  and  two  small  white  knobby  children.  For  a 
time  he  would  not  talk  to  Trafford  of  anything  but 
business — Trafford  was  so  manifestly  the  enemy,  not 
to  be  trusted,  the  adventurous  plutocrat,  the  ex- 
ploiter— when  at  last  Dowd  did  open  out  he  did  so 
defiantly,  throwing  opinions  at  Trafford  as  a  mob 
might  hurl  bricks  at  windows.  At  last  they  achieved 
a  sort  of  friendship  and  understanding,  an  amiability 
as  it  were,  in  hostility,  but  never  from  first  to  last 
would  he  talk  to  Trafford  as  one  gentleman  to  an- 
other ;  between  them,  and  crossed  only  by  flimsy,  tem- 
porary bridges,  was  his  sense  of  incurable  grievances 
and  fundamental  injustice.  He  seemed  incapable  of 
forgetting  the  disadvantages  of  his  birth  and  upbring- 
ing, the  inferiority  and  disorder  of  the  house  that 
sheltered  him,  the  poor  food  that  nourished  him,  the 


SUCCESSES  363 

deadened  air  he  breathed,  the  limited  leisure,  the  in- 
adequate books.  Implicit  in  his  every  word  and  act 
was  the  assurance  that  but  for  this  handicap  he 
could  have  filled  Trafford's  place,  while  Trafford 
would  certainly  have  failed  in  his. 

For  all  these  things  Dowd  made  Trafford  re- 
sponsible ;  he  held  him  to  that  inexorably. 

"  You  sweat  us,"  he  said,  speaking  between  his 
teeth ;  "you  limit  us,  you  stifle  us,  and  away  there  in 
the  West-end,  you  and  the  women  you  keep  waste 
the  plunder." 

Trafford  attempted  palliation.  "  After  all,"  he 
said,  "  it's  not  me  so  particularly— 

"  But  it  is,"  said  Dowd. 

"  It's  the  system  things  go  upon." 

"  You're  the  responsible  part  of  it.  You  have 
freedom,  you  have  power  and  endless  opportunity — 

Trafford  shrugged  his  shoulders. 

"  It's  because  your  sort  wants  too  much,"  said 
Dowd,  "  that  my  sort  hasn't  enough." 

"  Tell  me  how  to  organize  things  better." 

"  Much  you'd  care.  They'll  organize  themselves. 
Everything  is  drifting  to  class  separation,  the 
growing  discontent,  the  growing  hardship  of  the 
masses.  .  .  .  Then  you'll  see." 

"  Then  what's  going  to  happen  ?" 

"  Overthrow.     And  social  democracy." 

"  How  is  that  going  to  work  ?" 

Dowd  had  been  cornered  by  that  before.  "  I  don't 
care  if  it  doesn't  work,"  he  snarled,  "  so  long  as  we 
smash  up  this.  We're  getting  too  sick  to  care  what 
comes  after." 

"Dowd,"  said  Trafford  abruptly,  "I'm  not  so 
satisfied  with  things." 

Dowd  looked  at  him  askance.  "  You'll  get  recon- 
ciled to  it,"  he  said.  It's  ugly  here —  but  it's  all 


364  MARRIAGE 

right  there — at  the  spending  end.  .  .  .  Your  sort, 
has  got  to  grab,  J9ur  sort  has  got  to  spend — until 
the  thing  works  out  and  the  social  revolution  makes 
an  end  of  you." 

"And  then?" 

Dowd  became  busy  with  his  work. 

Trafford  stuck  his  hands  in  his  pockets  and  stared 
out  of  the  dingy  factory  window. 

"  I  don't  object  so  much  to  your  diagnosis,"  he 
said,  "  as  to  your  remedy.  It  doesn't  strike  me  as  a 
remedy." 

"  It's  an  end,"  said  Dowd,  "  anyhow.  My  God ! 
When  I  think  of  all  the  women  and  shirkers  flaunting 
and  frittering  away  there  in  the  West,  while  here  men 
and  women  toil  and  worry  and  starve.  .  .  ."  He 
stopped  short  like  one  who  feels  too  full  for  con- 
trolled speech. 

"  Dowd,"  said  Traif ord  after  a  fair  pause,  "LWhat 
would  you  do  if  you  were  me?" 

"Do?"  said  Dowd. 

"  Yes,"  said  Trafford  as  one  who  reconsiders 
it,  "  what  would  you  do  ?" 

"  Now  that's  a  curious  question,  Mr.  Trafford," 
said  Dowd,  turning  to  regard  him.  "  Meaning — if  I 
were  in  your  place? 

"  Yes,"  said  Trafford.  "  What  would  you  do  in 
my  place?" 

"  I  should  sell  out  of  this  place  jolly  quick,"  he 
said. 

"SeU!"   said   Trafford   softly. 

"  Yes — sell.  And  start  a  socialist  daily  right 
off.  An  absolutely  independent,  unbiassed  social- 
ist daily." 

"  And  what  would  that  do?" 

"  It  would  stir  people  up.    Every  day  it  would  stir 
people  up." 


SUCCESSES  365 

"  But  you  see  I  can't  edit.  I  haven't  the  money 
for  half  a  year  of  a  socialist  daily.  .  .  .  And  mean- 
while people  want  rubber." 

Dowd  shook  his  head.  "  You  mean  that  you  and 
your  wife  want  to  have  the  spending  of  six  or  eight 
thousand  a  year,"  he  said. 

"  I  don't  make  half  of  that,"  said  Trafford. 

"  Well— half  of  that,"  pressed  Dowd.  It's  all  the 
same  to  me." 

Trafford  reflected.  "  The  point  where  I  don't 
agree  with  you,"  he  said,  "  is  in  supposing  that  my 
scale  of  living — over  there,  is  directly  connected 
with  the  scale  of  living — about  here." 

"Well,  isn't  it?" 

"  *  Directly,'  I  said.  No.  If  we  just  stopped  it 
— over  there — there'd  be  no  improvement  here.  In 
fact,  for  a  time  it  would  mean  dislocations.  It  might 
mean  permanent,  hopeless,  catastrophic  dislocation. 
You  know  that  as  well  as  I  do.  Suppose  the  West- 
end  became — Tolstoyan;  the  East  would  become 
chaos." 

"  Not  much  likelihood,"  sneered  Dowd. 

"  That's  another  question.  That  we  earn  to- 
gether here  and  that  I  spend  alone  over  there,  it's 
unjust  and  bad,  but  it  isn't  a  thing  that  admits  of 
any  simple  remedy.  Where  we  differ,  Dowd,  is  about 
that  remedy.  I  admit  the  disease  as  fully  as  you  do. 
I,  as  much  as  you,  want  to  see  the  dawn  of  a  great 
change  in  the  ways  of  human  living.  But  I  don't 
think  the  diagnosis  is  complete  and  satisfactory ;  our 
problem  is  an  intricate  muddle  of  disorders,  not  one 
simple  disorder,  and  I  don't  see  what  treatment  is 
indicated." 

"  Socialism,"  said  Dowd,  "  is  indicated." 

"  You  might  as  well  say  that  health  is  indicated," 
said  Trafford  with  a  note  of  impatience  in  his  voice. 


366  MARRIAGE 

"  Does  any  one  question  that  if  we  could  have  this 
socialist  state  in  which  every  one  is  devoted  and 
every  one  is  free,  in  which  there  is  no  waste  and  no 
want,  and  beauty  and  brotherhood  prevail  univer- 
sally, we  wouldn't?  But .  You  socialists  have 

no  scheme  of  government,  no  scheme  of  economic  or- 
ganization, no  intelligible  guarantees  of  personal 
liberty,  no  method  of  progress,  no  ideas  about  mar- 
riage, no  plan — except  those  little  pickpocket  plans 
of  the  Fabians  that  you  despise  as  much  as  I  do — 
for  making  this  order  into  that  other  order  you've 
never  yet  taken  the  trouble  to  work  out  even  in  prin- 
ciple. Really  you  know,  Dowd,  what  is  the  good  of 
pointing  at  my  wife's  dresses  and  waving  the  red  flag 
at  me,  and  talking  of  human  miseries — 

"  It  seems  to  wake  you  up  a  bit,"  said  Dowd  with 
characteristic  irrelevance. 


The  accusing  finger  of  Dowd  followed  Trafford 
into  his  dreams. 

Behind  it  was  his  grey-toned,  intelligent,  resent- 
ful face,  his  smouldering  eyes,  his  slightly  frayed 
collar  and  vivid,  ill-chosen  tie.  At  times  Trafford 
could  almost  hear  his  flat  insistent  voice,  his  measur- 
ed h-less  speech.  Dowd  was  so  penetratingly  right, — 
and  so  ignorant  of  certain  essentials,  so  wrong  in  his 
forecasts  and  ultimates.  It  was  true  beyond  disput- 
ing that  Trafford  as  compared  with  Dowd  had  op- 
portunity, power  of  a  sort,  the  prospect  and  possi- 
bility of  leisure.  He  admitted  the  liability  that  fol- 
lowed on  that  advantage.  It  expressed  so  entirely 
the  spirit  of  his  training  that  with  Trafford  the  noble 
maxim  of  the  older  socialists ;  "  from  each  accord- 


SUCCESSES  367 

ing  to  his  ability,  to  each  according  to  his  need," 
received  an  intuitive  acquiescence.  He  had  no  more 
doubt  than  Dowd  that  Dowd  was  the  victim  of  a  sub- 
tle evasive  injustice,  innocently  and  helplessly  under- 
bred, underfed,  cramped  and  crippled,  and  that  all 
his  own  surplus  made  him  in  a  sense  Dowd's  debtor. 

But  Dowd's  remedies ! 

Trafford  made  himself  familiar  with  the  socialist 
and  labor  newspapers,  and  he  was  as  much  impressed 
by  their  honest  resentments  and  their  enthusiastic 
hopefulness  as  he  was  repelled  by  their  haste  and  ig- 
norance, their  cocksure  confidence  in  untried  reforms 
and  impudent  teachers,  their  indiscriminating  pro- 
gressiveness,  their  impulsive  lapses  into  hatred,  mis- 
representation and  vehement  personal  abuse.  He 
was  in  no  mood  for  the  humours  of  human  character, 
and  he  found  the  ill-masked  feuds  and  jealousies  of  the 
leaders,  the  sham  statecraft  of  G.  B.  Magdeberg, 
M.P.,  the  sham  Machiavellism  of  Dorvil,  the  sham 
persistent  good-heartedness  of  Will  Pipes,  discourag- 
ing and  irritating.  Altogether  it  seemed  to  him  the 
conscious  popular  movement  in  politics,  both  in  and 
out  of  Parliament,  was  a  mere  formless  and  indeter- 
minate aspiration.  It  was  a  confused  part  of  the 
general  confusion,  symptomatic  perhaps,  but  exer- 
cising no  controls  and  no  direction. 

His  attention  passed  from  the  consideration  of 
this  completely  revolutionary  party  to  the  general 
field  of  social  reform.  With  the  naive  directness  of 
a  scientific  man,  he  got  together  the  published  liter- 
ature of  half  a  dozen  flourishing  agitations  and  phil- 
anthropies, interviewed  prominent  and  rather  em- 
barrassed personages,  attended  meetings,  and  when 
he  found  the  speeches  too  tiresome  to  follow  watched 
the  audience  about  him.  He  even  looked  up  Aunt 
Plessington's  Movement,  and  filled  her  with  wild 


368  MARRIAGE 

hopes  and  premature  boastings  about  a  promising 
convert.  "  Marjorie's  brought  him  round  at  last!" 
said  Aunt  Plessington.  "  I  knew  I  could  trust  my 
little  Madge!"  His  impression  was  not  the  cynic's 
impression  of  these  wide  shallows  of  activity.  Pro- 
gress and  social  reform  are  not,  he  saw,  mere  cloaks 
of  hypocrisy ;  a  wealth  of  good  intention  lies  behind 
them  in  spite  of  their  manifest  futility.  There  is 
much  dishonesty  due  to  the  blundering  desire  for  con- 
sistency in  people  of  hasty  intention,  much  artless 
and  a  little  calculated  self-seeking,  but  far  more  van- 
ity and  amiable  feebleness  of  mind  in  their  general 
attainment  of  failure.  The  Plessingtons  struck  him 
as  being  after  all  very  typical  of  the  publicist  at 
large,  quite  devoted,  very  industrious,  extremely  pre- 
sumptious  and  essentially  thin-witted.  They  would 
cheat  like  ill-bred  children  for  example,  on  some  petty 
point  of  reputation,  but  they  could  be  trusted  to  ex- 
pend, ineffectually  indeed,  but  with  the  extremest 
technical  integrity,  whatever  sums  of  money  their  ad- 
herents could  get  together.  .  .  . 

He  emerged  from  this  inquiry  into  the  proposed 
remedies  and  palliatives  for  Dowd's  wrongs  with  a 
better  opinion  of  people's  hearts  and  a  worse  one  of 
their  heads  than  he  had  hitherto  entertained. 

Pursuing  this  line  of  thought  he  passed  from  the 
politicians  and  practical  workers  to  the  economists 
and  sociologists.  He  spent  the  entire  leisure  of  the 
second  summer  after  the  establishment  of  the  factory 
upon  sociological  and  economic  literature.  At  the 
end  of  that  bout  of  reading  he  attained  a  vivid  real- 
ization of  the  garrulous  badness  that  rules  in  this  field 
of  work,  and  the  prevailing  slovenliness  and  negli- 
gence in  regard  to  it.  He  chanced  one  day  to  look 
up  the  article  on  Socialism  in  the  new  Encyclopaedia 
Britannica,  and  found  in  its  entire  failure  to  state 


SUCCESSES  369 

the  case  for  or  against  modern  Socialism,  to  trace 
its  origins,  or  to  indicate  any  rational  development 
in  the  movement,  a  symptom  of  the  universal  laxity 
of  interest  in  these  matters.  Indeed,  the  writer  did 
not  appear  to  have  heard  of  modern  Socialism  at  all ; 
he  discussed  collective  and  individualist  methods  very 
much  as  a  rather  ill-read  schoolgirl  in  a  hurry  for  her 
college  debating  society  might  have  done.  Compared 
with  the  treatment  of  engineering  or  biological  science 
in  the  same  compilation,  this  article  became  almost 
symbolical  of  the  prevailing  habitual  incompetence 
with  which  all  this  system  of  questions  is  still  han- 
dled. The  sciences  were  done  scantily  and  carelessly 
enough,  but  they  admitted  at  any  rate  the  possibility 
of  completeness ;  this  did  not  even  pretend  to 
thoroughness. 

One  might  think  such  things  had  no  practical 
significance.  And  at  the  back  of  it  all  was  Dowd, 
remarkably  more  impatient  each  year,  confessing  the 
failure  of  parliamentary  methods,  of  trades  union- 
ism, hinting  more  and  more  plainly  at  the  advent  of 
a  permanent  guerilla  war  against  capital,  at  the  gen- 
eral strike  and  sabotage. 

"  It's  coming  to  that,"  said  Dowd ;  "  it's  coming  to 
that." 

"  What's  the  good  of  it?"  he  said,  echoing  Traf- 
ford's  words.  "  It's  a  sort  of  relief  to  the  feelings. 
[Why  shouldn't  we?" 


But  you  must  not  suppose  that  at  any  time  these 
huge  grey  problems  of  our  social  foundations  and  the 
riddle  of  intellectual  confusion  one  reaches  through 
them,  and  the  yet  broader  riddles  of  human  purpose 
that  open  beyond,  constitute  the  whole  of  Trafford's 


370  MARRIAGE 

life  during  this  time.  When  he  came  back  to  Marjorie 
and  his  home,  a  curtain  of  unreality  fell  between  him 
and  all  these  things.  It  was  as  if  he  stepped  through 
such  boundaries  as  Alice  passed  to  reach  her  Won- 
derland; the  other  world  became  a  dream  again;  as 
if  he  closed  the  pages  of  a  vivid  book  and  turned  to 
things  about  him.  Or  again  it  was  as  if  he  drew 
down  the  blind  of  a  window  that  gave  upon  a  land- 
scape, grave,  darkling,  ominous,  and  faced  the  warm 
realities  of  a  brightly  illuminated  room.  .  .  . 

In  a  year  or  so  he  had  the  works  so  smoothly 
organized  and  Dowd  so  reconciled,  trained  and  en- 
couraged that  his  own  daily  presence  was  unneces- 
sary, and  he  would  go  only  three  and  then  only  two 
mornings  a  week  to  conduct  those  secret  phases  in 
the  preparation  of  his  catalytic  that  even  Dowd  could 
not  be  trusted  to  know.  He  reverted  more  and  more 
completely  to  his  own  proper  world. 

And  the  first  shock  of  discovering  that  greater 
London  which  "isn't  in  it"  passed  away  by  imper- 
ceptible degrees.  Things  that  had  been  as  vivid  and 
startling  as  new  wounds  became  unstimulating  and 
ineffective  with  repetition.  He  got  used  to  the  change 
from  Belgravia  to  East  Ham,  from  East  Ham  to  Bel- 
gravia.  He  fell  in  with  the  unusual  persuasion  in 
Belgravia,  that,  given  a  firm  and  prompt  Home 
Secretary,  East  Ham  could  be  trusted  to  go  on — for 
quite  a  long  time  anyhow.  One  cannot  sit  down  for 
all  one's  life  in  the  face  of  insoluble  problems.  He 
had  a  motor-car  now  that  far  outshone  Magnet's, 
and  he  made  the  transit  from  west  to  east  in  the 
minimum  of  time  and  with  the  minimum  of  friction. 
It  ceased  to  be  more  disconcerting  that  he  should  have 
workers  whom  he  could  dismiss  at  a  week's  notice  to 
want  or  prostitution  than  that  he  should  have  a  ser- 
vant waiting  behind  his  chair.  Things  were  so.  The 


SUCCESSES  371 

main  current  of  his  life — and  the  mam  current  of  his 
life  flowed  through  Marjorie  and  his  home — carried 
him  on.  Rubber  was  his,  but  there  were  still  limit- 
less worlds  to  conquer.  He  began  to  take  up,  work- 
ing under  circumstances  of  considerable  secrecy  at 
Solomonson's  laboratories  at  Riplings,  to  which  he 
would  now  go  by  motor-car  for  two  or  three  days  at 
a  time,  the  possibility  of  a  cheap,  resilient  and  very 
tough  substance,  rubber  glass,  that  was  to  be,  Solo- 
monson  was  assured,  the  road  surface  of  the  future. 

§4 

The  confidencetof  Solomonson  had  made  it  impos- 
sible for  Trafford  to  alter  his  style  of  living  almost 
directly  upon  the  conclusion  of  their  agreement.  He 
went  back  to  Marjorie  to  broach  a  financially  eman- 
cipated phase.  They  took  a  furnished  house  at 
Shackleford,  near  Godalming  in  Surrey,  and  there 
they  lived  for  nearly  a  year — using  their  Chelsea 
home  only  as  a  town  apartment  for  Trafford  when 
business  held  him  in  London.  And  there  it  was,  in 
the  pretty  Surrey  country,  with  the  sweet  air  of  pine 
and  heather  in  Marjorie's  blood,  that  their  second 
child  was  born.  It  was  a  sturdy  little  boy,  whose 
only  danger  in  life  seemed  to  be  the  superfluous 
energy  with  which  he  resented  its  slightest  disrespect 
of  his  small  but  important  requirements. 

When  it  was  time  for  Marjorie  to  return  to  Lon- 
don, spring  had  come  round  again,  and1  Trafford's 
conceptions  of  life  were  adapting  themselves  to  the 
new  scale  upon  which  they  were  now  to  do  things. 
While  he  was  busy  creating  his  factory  in  the  East 
End,  Marjorie  was  displaying  an  equal  if  a  less  origi- 
nal constructive  energy  in  Sussex  Square,  near  Lan- 
caster Gate,  for  there  it  was  the  new  home  was  to  be 


372  MARRIAGE 

established.  She  set  herself  to  furnish  and  arrange 
it  so  as  to  produce  the  maximum  of  surprise  and  cha- 
grin in  Daphne,  and  she  succeeded  admirably.  The 
Magnets  now  occupied  a  flat  in  Whitehall  Court,  the 
furniture  Magnet  had  insisted  upon  buying  himself 
with  all  the  occult  cunning  of  the  humorist  in  these 
matters,  and  not  even  Daphne  could  blind  herself  to 
the  superiority  both  in  arrangement  and  detail  of 
Marjorie's  home.  That  was  very  satisfactory,  and 
so  too  was  the  inevitable  exaggeration  of  Trafford's 
financial  importance.  "  He  can  do  what  he  likes  in 
the  rubber  world,"  said  Marjorie.  "  In  Mincing 
Lane,  where  they  deal  in  rubber  shares,  they  used  to 
call  him  and  Sir  Rupert  the  invaders ;  now  they  call 
them  the  Conquering  Heroes.  ...  Of  course,  it's 
mere  child's  play  to  Godwin,  but,  as  he  said,  'We 
want  money.'  It  won't  really  interfere  with  his  more 
important  interests.  .  .  ." 

I  do  not  know  why  both  those  sisters  were  more 
vulgarly  competitive  with  each  other  than  with  any 
one  else;  I  have  merely  to  record  the  fact  that  thev 
were  so. 

The  effect  upon  the  rest  of  Marjorie's  family  was 
equally  gratifying.  Mr.  Pope  came  to  the  house- 
warming  as  though  he  had  never  had  the  slightest 
objection  to  Trafford's  antecedents,  and  told  him 
casually  after  dinner  that  Marjorie  had  always  been 
his  favourite  daughter,  and  that  from  the  first  he  had 
expected  great  things  of  her.  He  told  Magnet,  who 
was  the  third  man  of  the  party,  that  he  only  hoped 
Syd  and  Rom  would  do  as  well  as  their  elder  sisters. 
Afterwards,  in  the  drawing-room,  he  whacked  Mar- 
jorie suddenly  and  very  startlingly  on  the  shoulder- 
blade — it  was  the  first  bruise  he  had  given  her  since 
Buryhamstreet  days.  "  You've  made  a  man  of  him, 
Maggots,"  he  said. 


SUCCESSES  373 

The  quiet  smile  of  the  Christian  Scientist  was 
becoming  now  the  fixed  expression  of  Mrs.  Pope's 
face,  and  it  scarcely  relaxed  for  a  moment  as  she 
surveyed  her  daughter's  splendours.  She  had  tri- 
umphantly refused  to  worry  over  a  rather  serious 
speculative  disappointment,  but  her  faith  in  her  pro- 
phet's spiritual  power  had  been  strengthened  rather 
than  weakened  by  the  manifest  insufficiency  of  his 
financial  prestidigitations,  and  she  was  getting 
through  life  quite  radiantly  now,  smiling  at  (but  not, 
of  course,  giving  way  to)  beggars,  smiling  at  tooth- 
aches and  headaches,  both  her  own  and  other  peo- 
ple's, smiling  away  doubts,  smiling  away  everything 
that  bows  the  spirit  of  those  who  are  still  in  the  bonds 
of  the  flesh.  .  .  . 

Afterwards  the  children  came  round,  Syd  and 
Rom  now  with  skirts  down  and  hair  up,  and  rather 
stiff  in  the  fine  big  rooms,  and  Theodore  in  a  high 
collar  and  very  anxious  to  get  Trafford  on  his  side 
in  his  ambition  to  chuck  a  proposed  bank  clerkship 
and  go  in  for  professional  aviation.  .  .  . 

It  was  pleasant  to  be  respected  by  her  family 
again,  but  the  mind  of  Marjorie  was  soon  reaching 
out  to  the  more  novel  possibilities  of  her  changed 
position.  She  need  no  longer  confine  herself  to  teas 
and  afternoons.  She  could  now,  delightful  thought! 
give  dinners.  Dinners  are  mere  vulgarities  for  the 
vulgar,  but  in  the  measure  of  your  brains  does  a  din- 
ner become  a  work  of  art.  There  is  the  happy  blend- 
ing of  a  modern  and  distinguished  simplicity  with  a 
choice  of  items  essentially  good  and  delightful  and 
just  a  little  bit  not  what  was  expected.  There  is  the 
still  more  interesting  and  difficult  blending  and  ar- 
rangement of  the  diners.  From  the  first  Marjorie 
resolved  on  a  round  table,  and  the  achievement  of  that 
rare  and  wonderful  thing,  general  conversation.  She 


374  MARRIAGE 

had  a  clear  centre,  with  a  circle  of  silver  bowls  filled 
with  short  cut  flowers  and  low  shaded,  old  silver 
candlesticks  adapted  to  the  electric  light.  The  first 
dinner  was  a  nervous  experience  for  her,  but  happily 
Trafford  seemed  unconscious  of  the  importance  of 
the  occasion  and  talked  very  easily  and  well;  at  last 
she  attained  her  old  ambition  to  see  Sir  Roderick 
Dover  in  her  house,  and  there  was  Remington,  the 
editor  of  the  Blue  Weekly  and  his  silent  gracious 
wife;  Edward  Crampton,  the  historian,  full  of  sur- 
prising new  facts  about  Kosciusko ;  the  Solomonsons 
and  Mrs.  Millingham,  and  Mary  Gasthorne  the  novel- 
ist. It  was  a  good  talking  lot.  Remington  sparred 
agreeably  with  the  old  Toryism  of  Dover,  flank  at- 
tacks upon  them  both  were  delivered  by  Mrs.  Milling- 
ham  and  Trafford,  Crampton  instanced  Hungarian 
parallels,  and  was  happily  averted  by  Mary  Gas- 
thorne with  travel  experiences  in  the  Carpathians; 
the  diamonds  of  Lady  Solomons  on  and  Mrs.  Reming- 
ton flashed  and  winked  across  the  shining  table,  as 
their  wearers  listened  with  unmistakable  intelligence, 
and  when  the  ladies  had  gone  upstairs  Sir  Rupert 
Solomonson  told  all  the  men  exactly  what  he  thought 
of  the  policy  of  the  Blue  Weekly,  a  balanced,  common- 
sense  judgment.  Upstairs  Lady  Solomonson  betrayed 
a  passion  of  admiration  for  Mrs.  Remington,  and 
Mrs.  Millingham  mumbled  depreciation  of  the  same 
lady's  intelligence  in  Mary  Gasthorne's  unwilling 
ear.  "  She's  passive"  said  Mrs.  Millingham.  "  She 
bores  him.  .  .  ." 

For  a  time  Marjorie  found  dinner-giving  delight- 
ful— it  is  like  picking  and  arranging  posies  of  hu- 
man flowers — and  fruits — and  perhaps  a  little  dried 
grass,  and  it  was  not  long  before  she  learnt  that  she 
was  esteemed  a  success  as  a  hostess.  She  gathered 
her  earlier  bunches  in  the  Carmel  and  Solomonson 


SUCCESSES  375 

circle,  with  a  stiffening  from  among  the  literary  and 
scientific  friends  of  Trafford  and  his  mother,  and  one 
or  two  casual  and  undervalued  blossoms  from  Aunt 
Plessington's  active  promiscuities.  She  had  soon  a 
gaily  flowering  garden  of  her  own  to  pick  from.  Its 
strength  and  finest  display  lay  in  its  increasing  pro- 
portion of  political  intellectuals,  men  in  and  about  the 
House  who  relaxed  their  minds  from  the  tense  detail- 
ed alertness  needed  in  political  intrigues  by  conver- 
sation that  rose  at  times  to  the  level  of  the  smarter 
sort  of  article  in  the  half-crown  reviews.  The  women 
were  more  difficult  than  the  men,  and  Marjorie  found 
herself  wishing  at  times  that  girl  novelists  and  play- 
wrights were  more  abundant,  or  women  writers  on 
the  average  younger.  These  talked  generally  well, 
and  one  or  two  capable  women  of  her  own  type  talked 
and  listened  with  an  effect  of  talking;  so  many  other 
women  either  chattered  disturbingly,  or  else  did  not 
listen,  with  an  effect  of  not  talking  at  all,  and  so  made 
gaps  about  the  table.  Many  of  these  latter  had  to  be 
asked  because  they  belonged  to  the  class  of  inevitable 
wives,  sine-qua-nons,  and  through  them  she  learnt  the 
value  of  that  priceless  variety  of  kindly  unselfish  men 
who  can  create  the  illusion  of  attentive  conversation 
in  the  most  uncomfortable  and  suspicious  natures 
without  producing  backwater  and  eddy  in  the  general 
flow  of  talk. 

Indisputably  Marjorie's  dinners  were  successful. 
Of  course,  the  abundance  and  aesthetic  achievements 
of  Mrs.  Lee  still  seemed  to  her  immeasurably  out  of 
reach,  but  it  was  already  possible  to  show  Aunt 
Plessington  how  the  thing  ought  really  to  be  done, 
Aunt  Plessington  with  her  narrow,  lank,  austerely 
served  table,  with  a  sort  of  quarter-deck  at  her  own 
end  and  a  subjugated  forecastle  round  Hubert.  And 
accordingly  the  Plessingtons  were  invited  and  shown, 


376  MARRIAGE 

and  to  a  party,  too,  that  restrained  Aunt  Plessing- 
ton  from  her  usual  conversational  prominence.  .  .  . 

These  opening  years  of  Trafford's  commercial 
phase  were  full  of  an  engaging  activity  for  Marjorie 
as  for  him,  and  for  her  far  more  completely  than  for 
him  were  the  profounder  solicitudes  of  life  lost  sight 
of  in  the  bright  succession  of  immediate  events. 

Marjorie  did  not  let  her  social  development  inter- 
fere with  her  duty  to  society  in  the  larger  sense.  Two 
years  after  the  vigorous  and  resentful  Godwin  came 
a  second  son,  and  a  year  and  a  half  later  a  third. 
"  That's  enough,"  said  Marjorie,  "  now  we've  got  to 
rear  them."  The  nursery  at  Sussex  Square  had  al- 
ways been  a  show  part  of  the  house,  but  it  became 
her  crowning  achievement.  She  had  never  forgotten 
the  Lee  display  at  Vevey,  the  shining  splendours  of 
modern  maternity,  the  books,  the  apparatus,  the 
space  and  light  and  air.  The  whole  second  floor  was 
altered  to  accommodate  these  four  triumphant  beings, 
who  absorbed  the  services  of  two  nurses,  a  Swiss  nur- 
sery governess  and  two  housemaids — not  to  mention 
those  several  hundred  obscure  individuals  who  were 
yielding  a  sustaining  profit  in  the  East  End.  At  any 
rate,  they  were  very  handsome  and  promising  chil- 
dren, and  little  Margharita  could  talk  three  languages 
with  a  childish  fluency,  and  invent  and  write  a  short 
fable  in  either  French  or  German — with  only  as  much 
mispelling  as  any  child  of  eight  may  be  permitted.  .  . 

Then  there  sprang  up  a  competition  between 
Marjorie  and  the  able,  pretty  wife  of  Halford  Wal- 
lace, most  promising  of  under-secretaries.  They  gave 
dinners  against  each  other,  they  discovered  young 
artists  against  each  other,  they  went  to  first-nights 
and  dressed  against  each  other.  Marjorie  was  ruddy 
and  tall,  Mrs.  Halford  Wallace  dark  and  animated; 
Halford  Wallace  admired  Marjorie,  Trafford  was  in- 


SUCCESSES  377 

sensible  to  Mrs.  Halford  Wallace.  They  played  for 
points  so  vague  that  it  was  impossible  for  any  one 
to  say  which  was  winning,  but  none  the  less  they 
played  like  artists,  for  all  they  were  worth.  .  .  . 

Trafford's  rapid  prosperity  and  his  implicit 
promise  of  still  wider  activities  and  successes  brought 
him  innumerable  acquaintances  and  many  friends. 
He  joined  two  or  three  distinguished  clubs,  he  derived 
an  uncertain  interest  from  a  series  of  week-end  visits 
to  ample,  good-mannered  households,  and  for  a  time 
he  found  a  distraction  in  little  flashes  of  travel  to 
countries  that  caught  at  his  imagination,  Morocco, 
Montenegro,  Southern  Russia. 

I  do  not  know  whether  Marjorie  might  not  have 
been  altogether  happy  during  this  early  Sussex 
Square  period,  if  it  had  not  been  for  an  unconquer- 
able uncertainty  about  Traff ord.  But  ever  and  again 
she  became  vaguely  apprehensive  of  some  perplexing 
unreality  in  her  position.  She  had  never  had  any 
such  profundity  of  discontent  as  he  experienced.  It 
was  nothing  clear,  nothing  that  actually  penetrated, 
distressing  her.  It  was  at  most  an  uneasiness.  For 
him  the  whole  fabric  of  life  was,  as  it  were,  torn  and 
pieced  by  a  provocative  sense  of  depths  unplumbed 
that  robbed  it  of  all  its  satisfactions.  For  her  these 
glimpses  were  as  yet  rare,  mere  moments  of  doubt 
that  passed  again  and  left  her  active  and  assured. 

§  8 

It  was  only  after  they  had  been  married  six  or 
seven  years  that  Trafford  began  to  realize  how  wide- 
ly his  attitudes  to  Marjorie  varied.  He  emerged 
slowly  from  a  naive  unconsciousness  of  his  fluctua- 
tions,— a  naive  unconsciousness  of  inconsistency 
that  for  most  men  and  women  remains  throughout 


378  MARRIAGE 

life.  His  ruling  idea  that  she  and  he  were  friends, 
equals,  confederates,  knowing  everything  about  each 
other,  co-operating  in  everything,  was  very  fixed 
and  firm.  But  indeed  that  had  become  the  remotest 
rendering  of  their  relationship.  Their  lives  were  lives 
of  intimate  disengagement.  They  came  nearest  to 
fellowship  in  relation  to  their  children;  there  they 
shared  an  immense  common  pride.  Beyond  that 
was  a  less  confident  appreciation  of  their  common 
house  and  their  joint  effect.  And  then  they  liked 
and  loved  each  other  tremendously.  They  could  play 
upon  each  other  and'  please  each  other  in  a  hundred 
different  ways,  and  they  did  so,  quite  consciously, 
observing  each  other  with  the  completest  external- 
ity. She  was  still  in  many  ways  for  him  the  bright 
girl  he  had  admired  in  the  examination,  still  the  mys- 
terious dignified  transfiguration  of  that  delightful 
creature  on  the  tragically  tender  verge  of  mother- 
hood; these  memories  were  of  more  power  with  him 
than  the  present  realities  of  her  full-grown  strength 
and  capacity.  He  petted  and  played  with  the  girl 
still;  he  was  still  tender  and  solicitous  for  that  early 
woman.  He  admired  and  co-operated  also  with  the 
capable,  narrowly  ambitious,  beautiful  lady  into 
which  Marjorie  had  developed,  but  those  remoter  ex-» 
periences  it  was  that  gave  the  deeper  emotions  to 
their  relationship. 

The  conflict  of  aims  that  had  at  last  brought 
Trafford  from  scientific  investigation  into  busi- 
ness, had  left  behind  it  a  little  scar  of  hostility. 
He  felt  his  sacrifice.  He  felt  that  he  had  given  some- 
thing for  her  that  she  had  had  no  right  to  exact, 
that  he  had  gone  beyond  the  free  mutualities  of 
honest  love  and  paid  a  price  for  her;  he  had  de- 
flected the  whole  course  of  his  life  for  her  and  he  was 
entitled  to  repayments.  Unconsciously  he  had  be- 


SUCCESSES  379 

come  a  slightly  jealous  husband.  He  resented  inat- 
tentions and  absences.  He  felt  she  ought  to  be  with 
him  and  orient  all  her  proceedings  towards  him.  He 
did  not  like  other  people  to  show  too  marked  an  ap- 
preciation of  her.  She  had  a  healthy  love  of  ad- 
miration, and  in  addition  her  social  ambitions  made 
it  almost  inevitable  that  at  times  she  should  use  her 
great  personal  charm  to  secure  and  retain  adherents. 
He  was  ashamed  to  betray  the  resentments  thus 
occasioned,  and  his  silence  widened  the  separation 
more  than  any  protest  could  have  done.  .  .  . 

For  his  own  part  he  gave  her  no  cause  for  a  re- 
ciprocal jealousy.  Other  women  did  not  excite  his 
imagination  very  greatly,  and  he  had  none  of  the 
ready  disposition  to  lapse  to  other  comforters  which 
is  so  frequent  a  characteristic  of  the  husband  out  of 
touch  with  his  life's  companion.  He  was  perhaps 
an  exceptional  man  in  his  steadfast  loyalty  to  his 
wife.  He  had  come  to  her  as  new  to  love  as  she  had 
been.  He  had  never  in  his  life  taken  that  one  de- 
cisive illicit  step  which  changes  all  the  aspects  of 
sexual  life  for  a  man  even  more  than  for  a  woman. 
Love  for  him  was  a  thing  solemn,  simple,  and  un- 
spoilt. He  perceived  that  it  was  not  so  for  most 
other  men,  but  that  did  little  to  modify  his  own  pri- 
vate attitude.  In  his  curious  scrutiny  of  the  people 
about  him,  he  did  not  fail  to  note  the  drift  of  adven- 
tures and  infidelities  that  glimmers  along  beneath 
the  even  surface  of  our  social  life.  One  or  two  of  his 
intimate  friends,  Solomonson  was  one  of  them,  passed 
through  "affairs."  Once  or  twice  those  dim  pro- 
ceedings splashed  upward  to  the  surface  in  an  open 
scandal.  There  came  Remington's  startling  elope- 
ment with  Isabel  Rivers,  the  writer,  which  took  two 
brilliant  and  inspiring  contemporaries  suddenly  and 
distressingly  out  of  Trafford's  world.  Trafford 


380  MARRIAGE 

felt  none  of  that  rage  and  forced  and  jealous  con- 
tempt for  the  delinquents  in  these  matters  which  is 
common  in  the  ill-regulated,  virtuous  mind.  Indeed, 
he  was  far  more  sympathetic  with  than  hostile  to  the 
offenders.  He  had  brains  and  imagination  to  appre- 
ciate the  grim  pathos  of  a  process  that  begins  as  a 
hopeful  quest,  full  of  the  suggestion  of  noble  possi- 
bilities, full  of  the  craving  for  missed  intensities  of 
fellowship  and  realization,  that  loiters  involuntarily 
towards  beauties  and  delights,  and  ends  at  last  too 
often  after  gratification  of  an  appetite,  in  artificially 
hideous  exposures,  and  the  pelting  misrepresentations 
of  the  timidly  well-behaved  vile.  But  the  general  ef- 
fect of  pitiful  evasions,  of  unavoidable  meannesses,  of 
draggled  heroics  and  tortuously  insincere  explana- 
tions confirmed  him  in  his  aversion  from  this  laby- 
rinthine trouble  of  extraneous  love.  .  .  . 

But  if  Trafford  was  a  faithful  husband,  he  ceased 
to  be  a  happy  and  confident  one.  There  grew  up  in 
him  a  vast  hinterland  of  thoughts  and  feelings,  an  ac- 
cumulation of  unspoken  and  largely  of  unformulated 
things  in  which  his  wife  had  no  share.  And  it  was  in 
that  hinterland  that  his  essential  self  had  its  abiding 
place.  .  .  . 

It  came  as  a  discovery ;  it  remained  for  ever  after 
a  profoundly  disturbing  perplexity  that  he  had  talk- 
ed to  Marjorie  most  carelessly,  easily  and  seriously, 
during  their  courtship  and  their  honeymoon.  He 
remembered  their  early  intercourse  now  as  an  im- 
mense happy  freedom  in  love.  Then  afterwards  a 
curtain  had  fallen.  That  almost  delirious  sense  of 
escaping  from  oneself,  of  having  at  last  found  some 
one  from  whom  there  need  be  no  concealment,  some 
one  before  whom  one  could  stand  naked-souled  and  as- 
sured of  love  as  one  stands  before  one's  God,  faded  so 
that  he  scarce  observed  its  passing,  but  only  discov- 


SUCCESSES  381 

ered  at  last  that  it  had  gone.  He  misunderstood  and 
met  misunderstanding.  He  found  he  could  hurt  her 
by  the  things  he  said,  and  be  exquisitely  hurt  by  her 
failure  to  apprehend  the  spirit  of  some  ill-expressed 
intention.  And  it  was  so  vitally  important  not  to 
hurt,  not  to  be  hurt.  At  first  he  only  perceived  that 
he  reserved  himself;  then  there  came  the  intimation 
of  the  question,  was  she  also  perhaps  in  such  another 
hinterland  as  his,  keeping  herself  from  him? 

He  had  perceived  the  cessation  of  that  first  bright 
outbreak  of  self-revelation,  this  relapse  into  the  se- 
crecies of  individuality,  quite  early  in  their  married 
life.  I  have  already  told  of  his  first  efforts  to  bridge 
their  widening  separation  by  walks  and  talks  in  the 
country,  and  by  the  long  pilgrimage  among  the  Alps 
that  had  ended  so  unexpectedly  at  Vevey.  In  the 
retrospect  the  years  seemed  punctuated  with  phases 
when  "  we  must  talk"  dominated  their  intercourse, 
and  each  time  the  impulse  of  that  recognized  need 
passed  away  by  insensible  degrees  again — with  noth- 
ing said. 

§6 

Marjorie  cherished  an  obstinate  hope  that  Traf- 
ford  would  take  up  political  questions  and  go  into 
Parliament.  It  seemed  to  her  that  there  was  some- 
thing about  him  altogether  graver  and  wider  than 
most  of  the  active  politicians  she  knew.  She  liked 
to  think  of  those  gravities  assuming  a  practical  form, 
of  Trafford  very  rapidly  and  easily  coming  forward 
into  a  position  of  cardinal  significance.  It  gave  her 
general  expenditure  a  quality  of  concentration  with- 
out involving  any  uncongenial  limitation  to  suppose 
it  aimed  at  the  preparation  of  a  statesman's  circle 
whenever  Trafford  chose  to  adopt  that  assumption. 
Little  men  in  great  positions  came  to  her  house  and 


382  MARRIAGE 

talked  with  opaque  self-confidence  at  her  table;  sh-< 
measured  them  against  her  husband  while  she  played 
the  admiring  female  disciple  to  their  half-confidential 
talk.  She  felt  that  he  could  take  up  these  questions 
and  measures  that  they  reduced  to  trite  twaddle,  open 
the  wide  relevancies  behind  them,  and  make  them  mag- 
ically significant,  sweep  away  the  encrusting  petti- 
ness, the  personalities  and  arbitrary  prejudices.  But 
why  didn't  he  begin  to  do  it?  She  threw  out  hints  he 
seemed  blind  towards,  she  exercised  miracles  of 
patience  while  he  ignored  her  baits.  She  came  near 
intrigue  in  her  endeavor  to  entangle  him  in  political 
affairs.  For  a  time  it  seemed  to  her  that  she  was  suc- 
ceeding— I  have  already  told  of  his  phase  of  inquiry 
and  interest  in  socio-political  work — and  then  he  re- 
lapsed into  a  scornful  restlessness,  and  her  hopes 
weakened  again. 

But  he  could  not  concentrate  his  mind,  he  could 
not  think  where  to  begin.  Day  followed  day,  each 
with  its  attacks  upon  his  intention,  its  petty  just 
claims,  its  attractive  novelties  of  aspect.  The  tele- 
phone bell  rang,  the  letters  flopped  into  the  hall,  Mal- 
com  the  butler  seemed  always  at  hand  with  some  dis- 
tracting oblong  on  his  salver.  Dowd  was  developing 
ideas  for  a  reconstructed  organization  of  the  fac- 
tory, Solomonson  growing  enthusiastic  about  rub- 
ber-glass, his  house  seemed  full  of  women,  Marjorie 
had  an  engagement  for  him  to  keep  or  the  children 
were  coming  in  to  say  good-night.  To  his  irritated 
brain  the  whole  scheme  of  his  life  presented  itself  at 
last  as  a  tissue  of  interruptions  which  prevented  his 
looking  clearly  at  .reality.  More  and  more  definitely 
he  realized  he  wanted  to  get  away  and  think.  His 
former  life  of  research  became  invested  with  an  ef- 
fect of  immense  dignity  and  of  a  steadfast  singleness 
of  purpose.  .  .  , 


SUCCESSES  383 

But  Trafford  was  following  his  own  lights,  upon 
his  own  lines.  He  was  returning  to  that  faith  in  the 
supreme  importance  of  thought  and  knowledge,  up- 
on which  he  had  turned  his  back  when  he  left  pure 
research  behind  him.  To  that  familiar  end  he  came 
by  an  unfamiliar  route,  after  his  long,  unsatisfying 
examination  of  social  reform  movements  and  social 
and  political  theories.  Immaturity,  haste  and  pre- 
sumption vitiated  all  that  region,  and  it  seemed  to 
him  less  and  less  disputable  that  the  only  escape  for 
mankind  from  a  continuing  extravagant  futility  lay 
through  the  attainment  of  a  quite  unprecedented 
starkness  and  thoroughness  of  thinking  about  all 
these  questions.  This  conception  of  a  needed  Ren- 
ascence obsessed  him  more  and  more,  and  the  per- 
suasion, deeply  felt  if  indistinctly  apprehended,  that 
somewhere  in  such  an  effort  there  was  a  part  for  him 
to  play.  .  .  . 

Life  is  too  great  for  us  or  too  petty.  It  gives  us 
no  tolerable  middle  way  between  baseness  and  great- 
ness. We  must  die  daily  on  the  levels  of  ignoble  com- 
promise or  perish  tragically  among  the  precipices. 
On  the  one  hand  is  a  life — unsatisfying  and  secure, 
a  plane  of  dulled  gratifications,  mean  advantages, 
petty  triumphs,  adaptations,  acquiescences  and  sub- 
missions, and  on  the  other  a  steep  and  terrible  climb, 
set  with  sharp  stones  and  bramble  thickets  and  the 
possibilities  of  grotesque  dislocations,  and  the  snares 
of  such  temptation  as  comes  only  to  those  whose  minds 
have  been  quickened  by  high  desire,  and  the  challenge 
of  insoluble  problems  and  the  intimations  of  issues 
so  complex  and  great,  demanding  such  a  nobility  of 
purpose,  such  a  steadfastness,  alertness  and  open- 
ness of  mind,  that  they  fill  the  heart  of  man  with 
despair.  .  .  , 


384  MARRIAGE 

There  were  moods  when  Trafford  would,  as  peo- 
ple say,  pull  himself  together,  and  struggle  with  his 
gnawing  discontent.  He  would  compare  his  lot  with 
that  of  other  men,  reproach  himself  for  a  monstrous 
greed  and  ingratitude.  He  remonstrated  with  him- 
self as  one  might  remonstrate  with  a  pampered  child 
refusing  to  be  entertained  by  a  whole  handsome  nur- 
sery full  of  toys.  Other  men  did  their  work  in  the 
world  methodically  and  decently,  did  their  duty  by 
their  friends  and  belongings,  were  manifestly  patient 
through  dullness,  steadfastly  cheerful,  ready  to  meet 
vexations  with  a  humorous  smile,  and  grateful  for 
orderly  pleasures.  Was  he  abnormal?  Or  was  he  in 
some  unsuspected  way  unhealthy?  Trafford  neglected 
no  possible  explanations.  Did  he  want  this  great 
Renascence  of  the  human  mind  because  he  was  suf- 
fering from  some  subtle  form  of  indigestion  ?  He  in- 
voked, independently  of  each  other,  the  aid  of  two 
distinguished  specialists.  They  both  told  him  in  ex- 
actly the  same  voice  and  with  exactly  the  same  air 
of  guineas  well  earned:  "What  you  want,  Mr.  Traf- 
ford, is  a  change." 

Trafford  brought  his  mind  to  bear  upon  the  in- 
stances of  contentment  about  him.  He  developed  an 
opinion  that  all  men  and  many  women  were  poten- 
tially at  least  as  restless  as  himself.  A  huge  pro- 
portion of  the  usage  and  education  in  modern  life 
struck  upon  him  now  as  being  a  training  in  content- 
ment. Or  rather  in  keeping  quiet  and  not  upsetting 
things.  The  serious  and  responsible  life  of  an  or- 
dinary prosperous  man  fulfilling  the  requirements 
of  our  social  organization  fatigues  and  neither  com- 
pletely satisfies  nor  completely  occupies.  Still  less 
does  the  responsible  part  of  the  life  of  a  woman  of 
the  prosperous  classes  engage  all  her  energies  or 
hold  her  imagination.  And  there  has  grown  up  a 


SUCCESSES  385 

great  informal  organization  of  employments,  games, 
ceremonies,  social  routines,  travel,  to  consume  these 
surplus  powers  and  excessive  cravings,  which  might 
otherwise  change  or  shatter  the  whole  order  of  human 
living.  He  began  to  understand  the  forced  preoccupa- 
tion with  cricket  and  golf,  the  shooting,  visiting,  and 
so  forth,  to  which  the  young  people  of  the  econom- 
ically free  classes  in  the  community  are  trained.  He 
discovered  a  theory  for  hobbies  and  specialized  inter- 
ests. He  began  to  see  why  people  go  to  Scotland  to 
get  away  from  London,  and  come  to  London  to  get 
away  from  Scotland,  why  they  crowd  to  and  fro 
along  the  Riviera,  swarm  over  Switzerland,  shoot, 
yacht,  hunt,  and  maintain  an  immense  apparatus  of 
racing  and  motoring.  Because  so  they  are  able  to  re- 
main reasonably  contented  with  the  world  as  it  is.  He 
perceived,  too,  that  a  man  who  has  missed  or  broken 
through  the  training  to  this  kind  of  life,  does  not 
again  very  readily  subdue  himself  to  the  security  of 
these  systematized  distractions.  His  own  upbringing 
had  been  antipathetic  to  any  such  adaptations ;  his 
years  of  research  had  given  him  the  habit  of  naked 
intimacy  with  truth,  filled  him  with  a  craving  for 
reality  and  the  destructive  acids  of  a  relentless  criti- 
cal method. 

He  began  to  understand  something  of  the  psy- 
chology of  vice,  to  comprehend  how  small  a  part  mere 
sensuality,  how  large  a  part  the  spirit  of  adventure 
and  the  craving  for  illegality,  may  play,  in  the  career 
of  those  who  are  called  evil  livers.  Mere  animal  im- 
pulses and  curiosities  it  had  always  seemed  possible 
to  him  to  control,  but  now  he  was  beginning  to  appre- 
hend the  power  of  that  passion  for  escape,  at  any 
cost,  in  any  way,  from  the  petty,  weakly  stimulating, 
competitive  motives  of  low-grade  and  law-abiding 
prosperity.  .  .  . 


386  MARRIAGE 

For  a  time  Trafford  made  an  earnest  effort  to 
adjust  himself  to  the  position  in  which  he  found  him- 
self, and  make  a  working  compromise  with  his  dis- 
turbing forces.  He  tried  to  pick  up  the  scientific  pre- 
occupation of  his  earlier  years.  He  made  extensive 
schemes,  to  Solomonson's  great  concern,  whereby  he 
might  to  a  large  extent  disentangle  himself  from  busi- 
ness. He  began  to  hunt  out  forgotten  note-books 
and  yellowing  sheets  of  memoranda.  He  found  the 
resumption  of  research  much  more  difficult  than  he 
had  ever  supposed  possible.  He  went  so  far  as  to 
plan  a  laboratory,  and  to  make  some  inquiries  as  to 
site  and  the  cost  of  building,  to  the  great  satisfaction 
not  only  of  Marjorie  but  of  his  mother.  Old  Mrs. 
Trafford  had  never  expressed  her  concern  at  his 
abandonment  of  molecular  physics  for  money- 
making,  but  now  in  her  appreciation  of  his  return  to 
pure  investigation  she  betrayed  her  sense  of  his  de- 
parture. 

But  in  his  heart  he  felt  that  this  methodical  es- 
tablishment of  virtue  by  limitation  would  not  suffice 
for  him.  He  said  no  word  of  this  scepticism  as  it 
grew  in  his  mind.  Marjorie  was  still  under  the  im- 
pression that  he  was  returning  to  research,  and  that 
she  was  free  to  contrive  the  steady  preparation  for 
that  happier  day  when  he  should  assume  his  political 
inheritance.  And  then  presently  a  queer  little  dis- 
pute sprang  up  between  them.  Suddenly,  for  the 
first  time  since  he  took  to  business,  Trafford  found 
himself  limiting  her  again.  She  was  disposed,  partly 
through  the  natural  growth  of  her  circle  and  her 
setting  and  partly  through  a  movement  on  the  part 
of  Mrs.  Halford  Wallace,  to  move  from  Sussex  Square 
into  a  larger,  more  picturesquely  built  house  in  a 
more  central  position.  She  particularly  desired  a 
good  staircase.  He  met  her  intimations  of  this  de- 


SUCCESSES  387 

velopment  with  a  curious  and  unusual  irritation. 
The  idea  of  moving  bothered  him.  He  felt  that  ex- 
aggerated annoyance  which  is  so  often  a  concomitant 
of  overwrought  nerves.  They  had  a  dispute  that 
was  almost  a  quarrel,  and  though  Marjorie  dropped 
the  matter  for  a  time,  he  could  feel  she  was  still  at 
work  upon  it. 


CHAPTER  THE  SECOND 

TRAFFORD  DECIDES  TO  Go 


A  HAUNTING  desire  to  go  away  into  solitude  grew 
upon  Trafford  very  steadily.  He  wanted  intensely 
to  think,  and  London  and  Marjorie  would  not  let  him 
think.  He  wanted  therefore  to  go  away  out  of  Lon- 
don and  Marjorie's  world.  He  wanted,  he  felt,  to  go 
away  alone  and  face  God,  and  clear  things  up  in  his 
mind.  By  imperceptible  degrees  this  desire  antici- 
pated its  realization.  His  activities  were  affected 
more  and  more  by  intimations  of  a  determined  crisis. 
One  eventful  day  it  seemed  to  him  that  his  mind 
passed  quite  suddenly  from  desire  to  resolve.  He  found 
himself  with  a  project,  already  broadly  definite.  Hith- 
erto he  hadn't  been  at  all  clear  where  he  could  go. 
From  the  first  almost  he  had  felt  that  this  change  he 
needed,  the  change  by  which  he  was  to  get  out  of  the 
thickets  of  work  and  perplexity  and  distraction  that 
held  him  captive,  must  be  a  physical  as  well  as  a 
mental  removal  ;  he  must  go  somewhere,  still  and  iso- 
lated, where  sustained  detached  thinking  was  pos- 
sible. .  .  .  His  preference,  if  he  had  one,  inclined 
him  to  some  solitude  among  the  Himalaya  Moun- 
tains. That  came  perhaps  from  Kim  and  the  pre- 
cedent of  the  Hindoo's  religious  retreat  from  the 
world.  But  this  retreat  he  contemplated  was  a  re- 
treat that  aimed  at  a  return,  a  clarified  and  strength- 
ened resumption  of  the  world.  And  then  suddenly, 
as  if  he  had  always  intended  it,  Labrador  flashed 
through  his  thoughts,  like  a  familiar  name  that  had 
been  for  a  time  quite  unaccountably  forgotten. 

388 


TR AFFORD  DECIDES          389 

The  word  "  Labrador"  drifted  to  him  one  day 
from  an  adjacent  table  as  he  sat  alone  at  lunch  in 
the  Liberal  Union  Club.  Some  bore  was  reciting  the 
substance  of  a  lecture  to  a  fellow-member.  "  Seems 
to  be  a  remarkable  country,"  said  the  speaker. 
"Mineral  wealth  hardly  glanced  at,  you  know.  Furs 
and  a  few  score  Indians.  And  at  our  doors.  Prac- 
tically— at  our  doors." 

Traiford  ceased  to  listen.  His  mind  was  taking 
up  this  idea  of  Labrador.  He  wondered  why  he  had 
not  thought  of  Labrador  before. 

He  had  two  or  three  streams  of  thought  flowing 
in  his  mind,  as  a  man  who  muses  alone  is  apt  to  do. 
Marjorie's  desire  to  move  had  reappeared;  a  par- 
ticular group  of  houses  between  Berkeley  Square 
and  Park  Lane  had  taken  hold  of  her  fancy,  she 
had  urged  the  acquisition  of  one  upon  him  that 
morning,  and  this  kept  coming  up  into  conscious- 
ness like  a  wrong  thread  in  a  tapestry.  Moreover, 
he  was  watching  his  fellow-members  with  a  critical 
rather  than  a  friendly  eye.  A  half-speculative,  half- 
hostile  contemplation  of  his  habitual  associates  was 
one  of  the  queer  aspects  of  this  period  of  unsettle- 
ment.  They  exasperated  him  by  their  massive  con- 
tentment with  the  surface  of  things.  They  came  in 
one  after  another  patting  their  ties,  or  pulling  at 
the  lapels  of  their  coats,  and  looked  about  them  for 
vacant  places  with  a  conscious  ease  of  manner  that 
irritated  his  nerves.  No  doubt  they  were  all  more 
or  less  successful  and  distinguished  men,  matter  for 
conversation  and  food  for  anecdotes,  but  why  did 
they  trouble  to  give  themselves  the  air  of  it?  They 
halted  or  sat  down  by  friends,  enunciated  vapid 
remarks  in  sonorous  voices,  and  opened  conversations 
in  trite  phrases,  about  London  architecture,  about 
the  political  situation  or  the  morning's  newspaper, 


390  MARRIAGE 

conversations  that  ought,  he  felt,  to  have  been 
thrown  away  unopened,  so  stale  and  needless  they 
seemed  to  him.  They  were  judges,  lawyers  of  all 
sorts,  bankers,  company  promoters,  railway  mana<- 
gers,  stockbrokers,  pressmen,  politicians,  men  of 
leisure.  He  wondered  if  indeed  they  were  as  opaque 
as  they  seemed,  wondered  with  the  helpless  wonder 
of  a  man  of  exceptional  mental  gifts  whether  any 
of  them  at  any  stage  had  had  such  thoughts  as  his, 
had  wanted  as  acutely  as  he  did  now  to  get  right 
out  of  the  world.  Did  old  Booch  over  there,  for  ex- 
ample, guzzling  oysters,  cry  at  times  upon  the  un- 
known God  in  the  vast  silences  of  the  night?  But 
Booch,  of  course,  was  a  member  or  something  of  the 
House  of  Laymen,  and  very  sound  on  the  thirty- 
nine  articles — a  man  who  ate  oysters  like  that  could 
swallow  anything — and  in  the  vast  silences  of  the 
night  he  was  probably  heavily  and  noisily  asleep.  .  .  . 

Blenkins,  the  gentlemanly  colleague  of  Denton  in 
the  control  of  the  Old  Country  Gazette,  appeared  on 
his  way  to  the  pay-desk,  gesticulating  amiably  en- 
route  to  any  possible  friend.  Trafford  returned  his 
salutation,  and  pulled  himself  together  immediately 
after  in  fear  that  he  had  scowled,  for  he  hated  to 
be  churlish  to  any  human  being.  Blenkins,  too,  it 
might  be,  had  sorrow  and  remorse  and  periods  of 
passionate  self-distrust  and  self-examination;  may- 
be Blenkins  could  weep  salt  tears,  as  Blenkins  no 
doubt  under  suitable  sword-play  would  reveal  heart 
and  viscera  as  quivering  and  oozy  as  any  man's. 

But  to  Trafford's  jaundiced  eyes  just  then,  it 
seemed  that  if  you  slashed  Blenkins  across-  he  would 
probably  cut  like  a  cheese 

Now,  in  Labrador .     .     .     . 

So  soon  as  Blenkins  had  cleared,  Trafford  follow- 
ed him  to  the  pay-desk,  and  went  on  upstairs  to  the 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          391 

smoking-room,  thinking  of  Labrador.  Long  ago  he 
had  read  the  story  of  Wallace  and  Hubbard  in  that 
wilderness. 

There  was  much  to  be  said  for  a  winter  in  Labra- 
dor. It  was  cold,  it  was  clear,  infinitely  lonely,  with 
a  keen  edge  of  danger  and  hardship  and  never  a 
letter  or  a  paper. 

One  could  provision  a  hut  and  sit  wrapped  in 
fur,  watching  the  Northern  Lights  .  .  . 

"  I'm  off  to  Labrador,"  said  Trafford,  and  en- 
tered the  smoking-room. 

It  was,  after  all,  perfectly  easy  to  go  to  Labrador. 
One  had  just  to  go.  .  .  . 

As  he  pinched  the  end  of  his  cigar,  he  became 
aware  of  Blenkins,  with  a  gleam  of  golden  glasses  and 
a  flapping  white  cuff,  beckoning  across  the  room  to 
him.  With  that  probable  scowl  on  his  conscience 
Trafford  was  moved  to  respond  with  an  unreal 
warmth,  and  strolled  across  to  Blenkins  and  a  group 
of  three  or  four  other  people,  including  that  vigorous 
young  politician,  Weston  Massinghay,  and  Hart, 
K.C.,  about  the  further  fire-place.  "  We  were  talking 
of  you,"  said  Blenkins.  "  Come  and  sit  down  with  us. 
Why  don't  you  come  into  Parliament?" 

"  I've  just  arranged  to  go  for  some  months  to 
Labrador." 

"  Industrial  development  ?"  asked  Blenkins,  all 
alive. 

"  No.        Holiday.  " 

No  Blenkins  believes  that  sort  of  thing,  but  of 
course,  if  Trafford  chose  to  keep  his  own  counsel 

"  Well,  come  into  Parliament  as  soon  as  you  get 
back." 

Trafford  had  had  that  old  conversation  before. 
He  pretended  insensibility  when  Blenkins  gestured 
to  a  vacant  chair.  "  No,"  he  said,  still  standing,  "  we 


392  MARRIAGE 

>- 

settled  all  that.  And  now  I'm  up  to  my  neck  in — 
detail  about  Labrador.  I  shall  be  starting — before 
the  month  is  out." 

Blenkins  and  Hart  simulated  interest.  "  It's 
immoral,"  said  Blenkins,  "for  a  man  of  your  stand- 
ing to  keep  out  of  politics." 

It's  more  than  immoral,"  said  Hart;  "it's 
American." 

"  Solomonson  comes  in  to  represent  the  firm," 
smiled  Trafford,  signalled  the  waiter  for  coffee,  and 
presently  disentangled  himself  from  their  company. 

For  Blenkins  Trafford  concealed  an  exquisite 
dislike  and  contempt;  and  Blenkins  had  a  consider- 
able admiration  for  Trafford,  based  on  extensive  mis- 
understandings. Blenkins  admired  Trafford  because 
he  was  good-looking  and  well-dressed,  with  a  beauti- 
ful and  successful  wife,  because  he  had  become  rea- 
sonably rich  very  quickly  and  easily,  was  young 
and  a  Fellow  of  the  Royal  Society  with  a  reputation 
that  echoed  in  Berlin,  and  very  perceptibly  did  not 
return  Blenkins'  admiration.  All  these  things  filled 
Blenkins  with  a  desire  for  Trafford's  intimacy,  and 
to  become  the  associate  of  the  very  promising  polit- 
ical career  that  it  seemed  to  him,  in  spite  of  Traf- 
ford's repudiations,  was  the  natural  next  step  in  a 
deliberately  and  honourably  planned  life.  He 
mistook  Trafford's  silences  and  detachment  for  the 
marks  of  a  strong,  silent  man,  who  was  scheming  the 
immense,  vulgar,  distinguished-looking  achievements 
that  appeal  to  the  Blenkins  mind.  Blenkins  was 
a  sentimentally  loyal  party  Liberal,  and  as  he  said 
at  times  to  Hart  and  Weston  Massinghay :  "If  those 
other  fellows  get  hold  of  him !" 

Blenkins  was  the  fine  flower  of  Oxford  Liberal- 
ism and  the  Tennysonian  days.  He  wanted  to  be  like 
King  Arthur  and  Sir  Galahad,  with  the  merest  touch 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES         393 

of  Launcelot,  and  to  be  perfectly  upright  and  splen- 
did and  very,  very  successful.  He  was  a  fair,  tenor- 
ing  sort  of  person  with  an  Arthurian  moustache  and 
a  disposition  to  long  frock  coats.  It  had  been  said 
of  him  that  he  didn't  dress  like  a  gentleman,  but  that 
he  dressed  more  like  a  gentleman  than  a  gentleman 
ought  to  dress.  It  might  have  been  added  that  he  did- 
n't behave  like  a  gentleman,  but  that  he  behaved  more 
like  a  gentleman  than  a  gentleman  ought  to  behave. 
He  didn't  think,  but  he  talked  and  he  wrote  more 
thoughtfully  in  his  leaders,  and  in  the  little  dialogues 
he  wrote  in  imitation  of  Sir  Arthur  Helps,  than  any 
other  person  who  didn't  think  could  possibly  do.  He 
was  an  orthodox  Churchman,  but  very,  very  broad; 
he  held  all  the  doctrines,  a  distinguished  sort  of  thing 
to  do  in  an  age  of  doubt,  but  there  was  a  quality 
about  them  as  he  held  them — as  though  they  had  been 
run  over  by  something  rather  heavy.  It  was  a  flat- 
tened and  slightly  obliterated  breadth — nothing  was 
assertive,  but  nothing,  under  examination,  proved  to 
be  altogether  gone.  His  profuse  thoughtfulness  was 
riot  confined  to  his  journalistic  and  literary  work,  it 
overflowed  into  Talks.  He  was  a  man  for  Great 
Talks,  interminable  rambling  floods  of  boyish  obser- 
vation, emotional  appreciation,  and  silly,  sapient 
comment.  He  loved  to  discuss  "  Who  are  the  Best 
Talkers  now  Alive?"  He  had  written  an  essay,  Talk 
in  the  Past.  He  boasted  of  week-ends  when  the  Talk 
had  gone  on  from  the  moment  of  meeting  in  the  train 
to  the  moment  of  parting  at  Euston,  or  Paddington, 
or  Waterloo ;  and  one  or  two  hostesses  with  embit- 
tered memories  could  verify  his  boasting.  He  did  his 
best  to  make  the  club  a  Talking  Club,  and  loved  to 
Gummon  men  to  a  growing  circle  of  chairs.  .  .  . 

Trafford  had  been  involved  in  Talks  on  one  or 
two  occasions,  and  now,  as  he  sat  alone  in  the  corri- 


394  MARRIAGE 

dor  and  smoked  and  drank  his  coffee,  he  could  imag- 
ine the  Talk  he  had  escaped,  the  Talk  that  was  going 
on  in  the  smoking  room — the  platitudes,  the  sagaci- 
ties, the  digressions,  the  sudden  revelation  of  deep, 
irrational  convictions.  He  reflected  upon  the  various 
Talks  at  which  he  had  assisted.  His  chief  impression 
of  them  all  was  of  an  intolerable  fluidity.  Never  once 
had  he  known  a  Talk  thicken  to  adequate  discussion ; 
never  had  a  new  idea  or  a  new  view  come  to  him  in  a 
Talk.  He  wondered  why  Blenkins  and  his  like  talked 
at  all.  Essentially  they  lived  for  pose,  not  for  ex- 
pression; they  did  not  greatly  desire  to  discover, 
make,  or  be ;  they  wanted  to  seem  and  succeed.  Talk- 
ing perhaps  was  part  of  their  pose  of  great  intellec- 
tual activity,  and  Blenkins  was  fortunate  to  have  an 
easy,  unforced  running  of  mind.  .  .  . 

Over  his  cigar  Trafford  became  profoundly  philo- 
sophical about  Talk.  And  after  the  manner  of  those 
who  become  profoundly  philosophical  he  spread  out 
the  word  beyond  its  original  and  proper  intentions 
to  all  sorts  of  kindred  and  parallel  things.  Blenkins 
and  his  miscellany  of  friends  in  their  circle  of  chairs 
were,  after  all,  only  a  crude  rendering  of  very  much 
of  intellectual  activity  of  mankind.  Men  talked  so 
often  as  dogs  bark.  Those  Talkers  never  came  to 
grips,  fell  away  from  topic  to  topic,  pretended  depth 
and  evaded  the  devastating  horrors  of  sincerity.  Lis- 
tening was  a  politeness  amongst  them  that  was  pre- 
sently rewarded  with  utterance.  Tremendously  like 
dogs  they  were,  in  a  dog-fancying  neighborhood  on 
a  summer  week-day  afternoon.  Fluidity,  excessive 
abundance,  inconsecutiveness ;  these  were  the  things 
that  made  Talk  hateful  to  Trafford. 

Wasn't  most  literature  in  the  same  class  ?  Wasn't 
nearly  all  present  philosophical  and  sociological 
discussion  in  the  world  merely  a  Blenkins  circle  on  a 


TR  AFFORD  DECIDES          395 

colossal  scale,  with  every  one  looming  forward  to  get 
in  a  deeply  thoughtful  word  edgeways  at  the  first  op- 
portunity? Imagine  any  one  in  distress  about  his 
soul  or  about  mankind,  going  to  a  professor  of  eco- 
nomics or  sociology  or  philosophy!  He  thought  of 
the  endless,  big,  expensive,  fruitless  books,  the  windy 
expansions  of  industrious  pedantry  that  mocked  the 
spirit  of  inquiry.  The  fields  of  physical  and  biolog- 
ical science  alone  had  been  partially  rescued  from  the 
floods  of  human  inconsecutiveness.  There  at  least 
a  man  must,  on  the  whole,  join  on  to  the  work  of 
other  men,  stand  a  searching  criticism,  justify  him- 
self. Philosophically  this  was  an  age  of  relaxed  school- 
men. He  thought  of  Doctor  Codger  at  Cambridge, 
bubbling  away  with  his  iridescent  Hegelianism  like 
a  salted  snail  ;  of  Doctor  Quiller  at  Oxford,  ignoring 
Bergson  and  fulminating  a  preposterous  insular 
Pragmatism.  Each  contradicted  the  other  funda- 
mentally upon  matters  of  universal  concern  ;  neither 
ever  joined  issue  with  the  other.  Why  in  the  name 
of  humanity  didn't  some  one  take  hold  of  those  two 
excellent  gentlemen,  and  bang  their  busy  heads  to- 
gether hard  and  frequently  until  they  either  compro- 
mised or  cracked? 


He  forgot  these  rambling  speculations  as  he  came 
out  into  the  spring  sunshine  of  Pall  Mall,  and  halting 
for  a  moment  on  the  topmost  step,  regarded  the  tidy 
pavements,  the  rare  dignified  shops,  the  waiting  taxi- 
cabs,  the  pleasant,  prosperous  passers-by.  His  mind 
lapsed  back  to  the  thought  that  he  meant  to  leave  all 
this  and  go  to  Labrador.  His  mind  went  a  step  fur- 
ther, and  reflected  that  he  would  not  only  go  to  Lab- 
rador, but  —  it  was  highly  probable  —  come  back 
again. 


396  MARRIAGE 

And  then? 

Why,  after  all,  should  he  go  to  Labrador  at  all? 
Why  shouldn't  he  make  a  supreme  effort  here  ? 

Something  entirely  irrational  within  him  told  him 
with  conclusive  emphasis  that  he  had  to  go  to  Lab- 
rador. .  .  . 

He  remembered  there  was  this  confounded  busi- 
ness of  the  proposed  house  in  Mayfair  to  consider.  . .  . 

§3 

It  occurred  to  him  that  he  would  go  a  little  out 
of  his  way,  and  look  at  the  new  great  laboratories 
at  the  Romeike  College,  of  which  his  old  bottle- 
washer  Durgan  was,  he  knew,  extravagantly  proud. 
Romeike's  widow  was  dead  now  and  her  will  executed, 
and  her  substance  half  turned  already  to  bricks  and 
stone  and  glazed  tiles  and  all  those  excesses  of  space 
and  appliance  which  the  rich  and  authoritive  imagine 
must  needs  give  us  Science,  however  ill-selected  and 
underpaid  and  slighted  the  users  of  those  opportun- 
ities may  be.  The  architects  had  had  great  fun  with 
the  bequest;  a  quarter  of  the  site  was  devoted  to  a 
huge  square  surrounded  by  dignified,  if  functionless, 
colonnades,  and  adorned  with  those  stone  seats  of 
honour  which  are  always  so  chill  and  unsatisfactory 
as  resting  places  in  our  island  climate.  The  Labor- 
atories, except  that  they  were  a  little  shaded  by  the 
colonnades,  were  everything  a  laboratory  should  be; 
the  benches  were  miracles  of  convenience,  there  wasn't 
anything  the  industrious  investigator  might  want, 
steam,  high  pressures,  electric  power,  that  he  couldn't 
get  by  pressing  a  button  or  turning  a  switch,  unless 
perhaps  it  was  inspiring  ideas.  And  the  new  library 
at  the  end,  with  its  greys  and  greens,  its  logarithmic 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          397 

computators  at  every  table,  was  a  miracle  of  mental 
convenience. 

Durgan  showed  his  old  professor  the  marvels. 

"  If  he  chooses  to  do  something  here,"  said  Dur- 
gan not  too  hopefully,  "  a  man  can.  .  .  ." 

"  What's  become  «f  the  little  old  room  where  we 
two  used  to  work?"  asked  Trafford. 

"  They'll  turn  'em  all  out  presently,"  said  Dur- 
gan, "when  this  part  is  ready,  but  just  at  present  it's 
very  much  as  you  left  it.  There's  been  precious  little 
research  done  there  since  you  went  away — not  what 
/  call  research.  Females  chiefly — and  boys.  Play- 
ing at  it.  Making  themselves  into  D.Sc.'s  by  a  baby 
research  instead  of  a  man's  examination.  It's  like 
broaching  a  thirty-two  gallon  cask  full  of  Pap  to 
think  of  it.  Lord,  sir,  the  swill !  Research !  Count- 
ing and  weighing  things  !  Professor  Lake's  all  right, 
I  suppose,  but  his  work  was  mostly  mathematical; 
he  didn't  do  much  of  it  here.  No,  the  old  days  ended, 
sir,  when  you " 

He  arrested  himself,  and  obviously  changed  his 
words.  "  Got  busy  with  other  things." 

Trafford  surveyed  the  place ;  it  seemed  to  him  to 
have  shrunken  a  little  in  the  course  of  the  three  years 
that  had  intervened  since  he  resigned  his  position.  On 
the  wall  at  the  back  there  still  hung,  fly-blown  and  a 
little  crumpled,  an  old  table-  of  constants  he  had  made 
for  his  elasticity  researches.  Lake  had  kept  it  there, 
for  Lake  was  a  man  of  generous  appreciations,  and 
rather  proud  to  follow  in  the  footsteps  of  an  inves- 
tigator of  Trafford's  subtlety  and  vigor;  The  old  sink 
in  the  corner  where  Trafford  had  once  swilled  his 
watch  glasses  and  filled  his  beakers  had  been  replaced 
by  one  of  a  more  modern  construction,  and  the 
combustion  cupboard  was  unfamiliar,  until  Durgan 
pointed  out  that  it  had  been  enlarged.  The  ground- 


398  MARRIAGE 

glass  window  at  the  east  end  showed  still  the  marks  of 
an  explosion  that  had  banished  a  clumsy  student  from 
this  sanctuary  at  the  very  beginning  of  Trafford's 
career. 

"  By  Jove !"  he  said  after  a  silence,  "  but  I  did 
some  good  work  here." 

"  You  did,  sir,"  said  Durgan. 

"  I  wonder — I  may  take  it  up  again  presently." 

"  I  doubt  it,  sir,"  said  Durgan. 

"Oh!     But  suppose  I  come  back?" 

"  I  don't  think  you  would  find  yourself  coming 
back,  sir,"  said  Durgan  after  judicious  consideration. 

He  adduced  no  shadow  of  a  reason  for  his  doubt, 
but  some  mysterious  quality  in  his  words  carried 
conviction  to  Trafford's  mind.  He  knew  that  he 
would  never  do  anything  worth  doing  in  molecular 
physics  again.  He  knew  it  now  conclusively  for  the 
first  time. 

§4 

He  found  himself  presently  in  Bond  Street.  The 
bright  May  day  had  brought  out  great  quantities  of 
people,  so  that  he  had  to  come  down  from  altitudes  of 
abstraction  to  pick  his  way  among  them. 

He  was  struck  by  the  prevailing  interest  and  con- 
tentment in  the  faces  he  passed.  There  was  no  sense 
of  insecurity  betrayed,  no  sense  of  the  deeps  and 
mysteries  upon  which  our  being  floats  like  a  film. 
They  looked  solid,  they  looked  satisfied ;  surely  never 
before  in  the  history  of  the  world  has  there  been  so 
great  a  multitude  of  secure-feeling,  satisfied-looking, 
uninquiring  people  as  there  is  to-day.  All  the  tragic 
great  things  of  life  seem  stupendously  remote  from 
them ;  pain  is  rare,  death  is  out  of  sight,  religion  has 
shrunken  to  an  inconsiderable,  comfortable,  reassur- 
ing appendage  of  the  daily  life.  And  with  the  bright 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          399 

small  things  of  immediacy  they  are  so  active  and 
alert.  Never  before  has  the  world  seen  such  multi- 
tudes, and  a  day  must  come  when  it  will  cease  to  see 
them  for  evermore. 

As  he  shouldered  his  way  through  the  throng  be- 
fore the  Oxford  Street  shop  windows  he  appreciated 
a  queer  effect,  almost  as  it  were  of  insanity,  about  all 
this  rich  and  abundant  and  ultimately  aimless  life, 
this  tremendous  spawning  and  proliferation  of  un- 
eventful humanity.  These  individual  lives  signified  no 
doubt  enormously  to  the  individuals,  but  did  all  the 
shining,  reflecting,  changing  existence  that  went  by 
like  bubbles  in  a  stream,  signify  collectively  anything 
more  than  the  leaping,  glittering  confusion  of  shoal- 
ing mackerel  on  a  sunlit  afternoon?  The  pretty 
girl  looking  into  the  window  schemed  picturesque 
achievements  with  lace  and  ribbon,  the  beggar  at  the 
curb  was  alert  for  any  sympathetic  eye,  the  chauf- 
feur on  the  waiting  taxi-cab  watched  the  twopences 
ticking  on  with  a  quiet  satisfaction ;  each  followed  a 
keenly  sought  immediate  end,  but  altogether?  Where 
were  they  going  altogether?  Until  he  knew  that, 
where  was  the  sanity  of  statecraft,  the  excuse  of  any 
impersonal  effort,  the  significance  of  anything  beyond 
a  life  of  appetites  and  self-seeking  instincts? 

He  found  that  perplexing  suspicion  of  priggish- 
ness  affecting  him  again.  Why  couldn't  he  take  the 
gift  of  life  as  it  seemed  these  people  took  it?  Why 
was  he  continually  lapsing  into  these  sombre,  dimly 
religious  questionings  and  doubts?  Why  after  all 
should  he  concern  himself  with  these  riddles  of  some 
collective  and  ultimate  meaning  in  things?  Was  he 
for  all  his  ability  and  security  so  afraid  of  the  acci- 
dents of  life  that  on  that  account  he  clung  to  this 
conception  of  a  larger  impersonal  issue  which  the 
world  in  general  seemed  to  have  abandoned  so  cheer- 


400  MARRIAGE 

fully  ?  At  any  rate  he  did  cling  to  it — and  his  sense 
of  it  made  the  abounding  active  life  of  this  stirring, 
bristling  thoroughfare  an  almost  unendurable  per- 
plexity. .  .  . 

By  the  Marble  Arch  a  little  crowd  had  gathered 
at  the  pavement  edge.  He  remarked  other  little 
knots  towards  Paddington,  and  then  still  others,  and 
inquiring,  found  the  King  was  presently  to  pass. 
They  promised  themselves  the  gratification  of  seeing 
the  King  go  by.  They  would  see  a  carriage,  they 
would  see  horses  and  coachmen,  perhaps  even  they 
might  catch  sight  of  a  raised  hat  and  a  bowing  figure. 
And  this  would  be  a  gratification  to  them,  it  would 
irradiate  the  day  with  a  sense  of  experiences,  excep- 
tional and  precious.  For  that  some  of  them  had  al- 
ready been  standing  about  for  two  or  three  hours. 

He  thought  of  these  waiting  people  for  a  time, 
and  then  he  fell  into  a  speculation  about  the  King. 
He  wondered  if  the  King  ever  lay  awake  at  three 
o'clock  in  the  morning  and  faced  the  riddle  of  the 
eternities  or  whether  he  did  really  take  himself  seri- 
ously and  contentedly  as  being  in  himself  the  vital 
function  of  the  State,  performed  his  ceremonies,  went 
hither  and  thither  through  a  wilderness  of  gaping 
watchers,  slept  well  on  it.  Was  the  man  satisfied? 
Was  he  satisfied  with  his  empire  as  it  was  and  himself 
as  he  was,  or  did  some  vision,  some  high,  ironical  in- 
timation of  the  latent  and  lost  possibilities  of  his 
empire  and  of  the  world  of  Things  Conceivable  that 
lies  beyond  the  poor  tawdry  splendours  of  our  present 
loyalties,  ever  dawn  upon  him? 

Trafford's  imagination  conjured  up  a  sleepless 
King  Emperor  agonizing  for  humanity.  .  .  . 

He  turned  to  his  right  out  of  Lancaster  Gate  into 
Sussex  Square,  and  came  to  a  stop  at  the  pavement 
edge. 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          401 

From  across  the  road  he  surveyed  the  wide  white 
front  and  portals  of  the  house  that  wasn't  big  enough 
for  Marjorie. 


He  let  himself  in  with  his  latchkey. 

Malcolm,  his  man,  hovered  at  the  foot  of  the 
staircase,  and  came  forward  for  his  hat  and  gloves 
and  stick. 

"Mrs.  Trafford  in?"  asked  Trafford. 

"  She  said  she  would  be  in  by  four,  sir." 

Trafford  glanced  at  his  watch  and  went  slowly 
upstairs. 

On  the  landing  there  had  been  a  rearrangement  of 
the  furniture,  and  he  paused  to  survey  it.  The  alter- 
ations had  been  made  to  accommodate  a  big  cloisonne 
jar,  that  now  glowed  a  wonder  of  white  and  tinted 
whites  and  luminous  blues  upon  a  dark,  deep-shining 
stand.  He  noted  now  the  curtain  of  the  window  had 
been  changed  from  something  —  surely  it  had  been  a 
reddish  curtain  !  —  to  a  sharp  clear  blue  with  a  black 
border,  that  reflected  upon  and  sustained  and  en- 
couraged the  jar  tremendously.  And  the  wall  behind 
—  ?  Yes.  Its  deep  brown  was  darkened  to  an  abso- 
lute black  behind  the  jar,  and  shaded  up  between  the 
lacquer  cabinets  on  either  hand  by  insensible  degrees 
to  the  general  hue.  It  was  wonderful,  perfectly  har- 
monious, and  so  subtly  planned  that  it  seemed  it  all 
might  have  grown,  as  flowers  grow.  .  .  . 

He  entered  the  drawing-room  and  surveyed  its 
long  and  handsome  spaces.  Post-impressionism  was 
over  and  gone  ;  three  long  pictures  by  young  Roger- 
son  and  one  of  Redwood's  gallant  bronzes  faced  the 
tall  windows  between  the  white  marble  fireplaces  at 
either  end.  There  were  two  lean  jars  from  India,  a 


402  MARRIAGE 

young  boy's  head  from  Florence,  and  in  a  great  bowl 
in  the  remotest  corner  a  radiant  mass  of  azaleas.  .  .  . 

His  mood  of  wondering  at  familiar  things  was 
still  upon  him.  It  came  to  him  as  a  thing  absurd  and 
incongruous  that  this  should  be  his  home.  It  was  all 
wonderfully  arranged  into  one  dignified  harmony,  but 
he  felt  now  that  at  a  touch  of  social  earthquake,  with 
a  mere  momentary  lapse  towards  disorder,  it  would 
degenerate  altogether  into  litter,  lie  heaped  together 
confessed  the  loot  it  was.  He  came  to  a  stop  opposite 
one  of  the  Rogersons,  a  stiffly  self-conscious  shop  girl 
in  her  Sunday  clothes,  a  not  unsuccessful  emulation  of 
Nicholson's  wonderful  Mrs.  Stafford  of  Paradise 
Row.  Regarded  as  so  much  brown  and  grey  and 
amber-gold,  it  was  coherent  in  Marjorie's  design,  but 
regarded  as  a  work  of  art,  as  a  piece  of  expression, 
how  madly  irrelevant  was  its  humour  and  implications 
to  that  room  and  the  purposes  of  that  room !  Roger- 
son  wasn't  perhaps  trying  to  say  much,  but  at  any 
rate  he  was  trying  to  say  something,  and  Redwood 
too  was  asserting  freedom  and  adventure,  and  the 
thought  of  that  Florentine  of  the  bust,  and  the  pa- 
tient, careful  Indian  potter,  and  every  maker  of  all 
the  little  casual  articles  about  him,  produced  an  ef- 
fect of  muffled,  stifled  assertions.  Against  this  sub- 
dued and  disciplined  background  of  muted,  inarticu- 
late cries, — cries  for  beauty,  for  delight,  for  freedom, 
Marjorie  and  her  world  moved  and  rustled  and  chat- 
tered and  competed — wearing  the  skins  of  beasts,  the 
love-plumage  of  birds,  the  woven  cocoon  cases  of  little 
silkworms.  .  .  . 

"  Preposterous,"  he  whispered. 

He  went  to  the  window  and  stared  out;  turned 
about  and  regarded  the  gracious  variety  of  that  long, 
well-lit  room  again,  then  strolled  thoughtfully  up- 
stairs. He  reached  the  door  of  his  study,  and  a 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES         403 

sound  of  voices  from  the  schoolroom — it  had  recently 
been  promoted  from  the  rank  of  day  nursery  to  this 
level — caught  his  mood.  He  changed  his  mind,  cros- 
sed the  landing,  and  was  welcomed  with  shouts. 

The  rogues  had  been  dressing  up.  Margharita, 
that  child  of  the  dreadful  dawn,  was  now  a  sturdy  and 
domineering  girl  of  eight,  and  she  was  attired  in  a 
gilt  paper  mitre  and  her  governess's  white  muslin 
blouse  so  tied  at  the  wrists  as  to  suggest  long  sleeves, 
a  broad  crimson  band  doing  duty  as  a  stole.  She 
was  Becket  prepared  for  martyrdom  at  the  foot  of 
the  altar.  Godwin,  his  eldest  son,  was  a  hot-tempered, 
pretty-featured  pleasantly  self-conscious  boy  of 
nearly  seven  and  very  happy  now  in  a  white  dragoon's 
helmet  and  rude  but  effective  brown  paper  breastplate 
and  greaves,  as  the  party  of  assassin  knights.  A 
small  acolyte  in  what  was  in  all  human  probably  one 
of  the  governess's  more  intimate  linen  garments  as- 
sisted Becket,  while  the  general  congregation  of  Can- 
terbury was  represented  by  Edward,  aged  two,  and 
the  governess,  disguised  with  a  Union  Jack  tied  over 
her  head  after  the  well-known  fashion  of  the  middle 
ages.  After  the  children  had  welcomed  their  father 
and  explained  the  bloody  work  in  hand,  they  returned 
to  it  with  solemn  earnestness,  while  Trafford  surveyed 
the  tragedy.  Godwin  slew  with  admirable  gusto,  and 
I  doubt  if  the  actual  Thomas  of  Canterbury  showed 
half  the  stately  dignity  of  Margharita. 

The  scene  finished,  they  went  on  to  the  penance 
of  Henry  the  Second;  and  there  was  a  tremendous 
readjustment  of  costumes,  with  much  consultation 
and  secrecy.  Trafford's  eyes  went  from  his  offspring 
to  the  long,  white-painted  room,  with  its  gay  frieze 
of  ships  and  gulls  and  its  rug- variegated  cork  carpet 
of  plain  brick  red.  Everywhere  it  showed  his  wife's 
quick  cleverness,  the  clean  serviceable  decorativeness 


404  MARRIAGE 

of  it  all,  the  pretty  patterned  window  curtains,  the 
writing  desks,  the  little  library  of  books,  the  flowers 
and  bulbs  in  glasses,  the  counting  blocks  and  bricks 
and  jolly  toys,  the  blackboard  on  which  the  children 
learnt  to  draw  in  bold  wide  strokes,  the  big,  well- 
chosen  German  colour  prints  upon  the  walls.  And 
the  children  did  credit  to  their  casket ;  they  were  not 
only  full  of  vitality  but  full  of  ideas,  even  Edward 
was  already  a  person  of  conversation.  They  were 
good  stuff  anyhov.  .  .  . 

It  was  fine  in  a  sense,  Trafford  thought,  to  have 
given  up  his  own  motives  and  curiosities  to  afford  this 
airy  pleasantness  of  upbringing  for  them,  and  then 
came  a  qualifying  thought.  Would  they  in  their  turn 
for  the  sake  of  another  generation  have  to  give  up 
fine  occupations  for  mean  occupations,  deep  thoughts 
for  shallow?  Would  the  world  get  them  in  turn? 
Would  the  girls  be  hustled  and  flattered  into  advan- 
tageous marriages,  that  dinners  and  drawing-rooms 
might  still  prevail?  Would  the  boys,  after  this  gra- 
cious beginning,  presently  have  to  swim  submerged 
in  another  generation  of  Blenkinses  and  their  Talk, 
toil  in  arduous  self-seeking,  observe,  respect  and 
manipulate  shams,  succeed  or  fail,  and  succeeding, 
beget  amidst  hope  and  beautiful  emotions  yet  another 
generation  doomed  to  insincerities  and  accommoda- 
tions, and  so  die  at  last — as  he  must  die?  .  .  . 

He  heard  his  wife's  clear  voice  in  the  hall  below, 
and  went  down  to  meet  her.  She  had  gone  into  the 
drawing-room,  and  he  followed  her  in  and  through 
the  folding  doors  to  the  hinder  part  of  the  room, 
where  she  stood  ready  to  open  a  small  bureau.  She 
turned  at  his  approach,  and  smiled  a  pleasant,  habit- 
ual smile.  .  .  . 

She  was  no  longer  the  slim,  quick-moving  girl  who 
had  come  out  of  the  world  to  him  when  he  crawled 


TR AFFORD  DECIDES          405 

from  beneath  the  wreckage  of  Solomonson's  plane, 
no  longer  the  half-barbaric  young  beauty  who  had 
been  revealed  to  him  on  the  staircase  of  the  Vevey 
villa.  She  was  now  a  dignified,  self-possessed  woman, 
controlling  her  house  and  her  life  with  a  skilful,  sub- 
tle appreciation  of  her  every  point  and  possibility. 
She  was  wearing  now  a  simple  walking  dress  of  brown- 
ish fawn  colour,  and  her  hat  was  touched  with  a  steely 
blue  that  made  her  blue  eyes  seem  handsome  and  hard, 
and  toned  her  hair  to  a  merely  warm  brown.  She 
had,  as  it  were,  subdued  her  fine  colours  into  a  sheath 
in  order  that  she  might  presently  draw  them  again 
with  more  effect. 

"  Hullo,  old  man!"  she  said,  "  you  home?" 

He  nodded.  "  The  club  bored  me — and  I  couldn't 
work." 

Her  voice  had  something  of  a  challenge  and  de- 
fiance in  it.  "  I've  been  looking  at  a  house,"  she  said. 
"  Alice  Carmel  told  me  of  it.  It  isn't  in  Berkeley 
Square,  but  it's  near  it.  It's  rather  good." 

He  met  her  eye.    "  That's — premature,"  he  said. 

"  We  can't  go  on  living  in  this  one." 

"  I  won't  go  to  another." 

"But  why?" 

"  I  just  won't." 

"It  isn't  the  money?" 

"  No,"  said  Trafford,  with  sudden  fierce  resent- 
ment. "  I've  overtaken  you  and  beaten  you  there, 
Marjorie." 

She  stared  at  the  harsh  bitterness  of  his  voice. 
She  was  about  to  speak  when  the  door  opened,  and 
Malcom  ushered  in  Aunt  Plessington  and  Uncle 
Hubert.  Husband  and  wife  hung  for  a  moment,  and 
then  realized  their  talk  was  at  an  end.  .  .  . 

Marjorie  went  forward  to  greet  her  aunt,  care- 
less now  of  all  that  once  stupendous  Influence  might 


406  MARRIAGE 

think  of  her.  She  had  long  ceased  to  feel  even  the 
triumph  of  victory  in  her  big  house,  her  costly,  dig- 
nified clothes,  her  assured  and  growing  social  impor- 
tance. For  five  years  Aunt  Plessington  had  not  even 
ventured  to  advise;  had  once  or  twice  admired.  All 
that  business  of  Magnet  was — even  elaborately- 
forgotten.  .  .  . 

Seven  years  of  feverish  self-assertion  had  left 
their  mark  upon  both  the  Plessingtons.  She  was 
leaner,  more  gauntly  untidy,  more  aggressively  ill- 
dressed.  She  no  longer  dressed  carelessly,  she  defied 
the  world  with  her  clothes,  waved  her  tattered  and 
dingy  banners  in  its  face.  Uncle  Hubert  was  no  fat- 
ter, but  in  some  queer  way  he  had  ceased  to  be  thin. 
Like  so  many  people  whose  peripheries  defy  the  man- 
ifest quaint  purpose  of  Providence,  he  was  in  a  state 
of  thwarted  adiposity,  and  with  all  the  disconnected- 
ness and  weak  irritability  characteristic  of  his  con- 
dition. He  had  developed  a  number  of  nervous  move- 
ments, chin-strokings,  cheek-scratchings,  and  in- 
credulous pawings  at  his  more  salient  features. 

"Isn't  it  a  lark?"  began  Aunt  Plessington,  with 
something  like  a  note  of  apprehension  in  her  high- 
pitched  voice,  and  speaking  almost  from  the  doorway, 
"  we're  making  a  call  together.  I  and  Hubert !  It's 
an  attack  in  force." 

Uncle  Hubert  goggled  in  the  rear  and  stroked  his 
chin,  and  tried  to  get  together  a  sort  of  facial  ex- 
pression. 

The  Traffords  made  welcoming  noises,  and  Mar- 
jorie  advanced  to  meet  her  aunt. 

"  We  want  you  to  do  something  for  us,"  said  Aunt 
Plessington,  taking  two  hands  with  two  hands.  .  .  . 

In  the  intervening  years  the  Movement  had  had 
ups  and  downs ;  it  had  had  a  boom,  which  had  ended 
abruptly  in  a  complete  loss  of  voice  for  Aunt  Plessing- 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          407 

ton — she  had  tried  to  run  it  on  a  patent  non-stimulat- 
ing food,  and  then  it  had  entangled  itself  with  a  new 
cult  of  philanthropic  theosophy  from  which  it  had 
been  extracted  with  difficulty  and  in  a  damaged  con- 
dition. It  had  never  completely  recovered  from  that 
unhappy  association.  Latterly  Aunt  Plessington  had 
lost  her  nerve,  and  she  had  taken  to  making  calls  upon 
people  with  considerable  and  sometimes  embarrassing 
demand  for  support,  urging  them  to  join  committees, 
take  chairs,  stake  reputations,  speak  and  act  as  foils 
for  her.  If  they  refused  she  lost  her  temper  very 
openly  and  frankly,  and  became  industriously  vin- 
dictive. She  circulated  scandals  or  created  them. 
Her  old  assurance  had  deserted  her ;  the  strangulated 
contralto  was  losing  its  magic  power,  she  felt,  in  this 
degenerating  England  it  had  ruled  so  long.  In  the 
last  year  or  so  she  had  become  extremely  snappy  with 
Uncle  Hubert.  She  ascribed  much  of  the  Movement's 
futility  to  the  decline  of  his  administrative  powers  and 
the  increasing  awkwardness  of  his  gestures,  and  she 
did  her  utmost  to  keep  him  up  to  the  mark.  Her 
only  method  of  keeping  him  up  to  the  mark  was  to 
jerk  the  bit.  She  had  now  come  to  compel  Marjorie 
to  address  a  meeting  that  was  to  inaugurate  a  new 
phase  in  the  Movement's  history,  and  she  wanted 
Marjorie  because  she  particularly  wanted  a  daring, 
liberal,  and  spiritually  amorous  bishop,  who  had  once 
told  her  with  a  note  of  profound  conviction  that  Mar- 
jorie was  a  very  beautiful  woman.  She  was  so  intent 
upon  her  purpose  that  she  scarcely  noticed  Trafford. 
He  slipped  from  the  room  unobserved  under  cover 
of  her  playful  preliminaries,  and  went  to  the  untidy 
little  apartment  overhead  which  served  in  that  house 
as  his  study.  He  sat  down  at  the  big  desk,  pushed 
his  methodically  arranged  papers  back,  and  drummed 
on  the  edge  with  his  fingers. 


408  MARRIAGE 

"  I'm  damned  if  we  have  that  bigger  house,"  said 
Trafford. 

§6 

He  felt  he  wanted  to  confirm  and  establish  this 
new  resolution,  to  go  right  away  to  Labrador  for  a 
year.  He  wanted  to  tell  some  one  the  thing  definitely. 
He  would  have  gone  downstairs  again  to  Marjorie, 
but  sh|e  was  submerged  and  swimming  desperately 
against  the  voluble  rapids  of  Aunt  Plessington's  pur- 
pose. It  might  be  an  hour  before  that  attack  with- 
drew. Presently  there  would  be  other  callers.  He  de- 
cided to  have  tea  with  his  mother  and  talk  to  her 
about  this  new  break  in  the  course  of  his  life. 

Except  that  her  hair  was  now  grey  and  her  brown 
eyes  by  so  much  contrast  brighter,  Mrs.  Trafford's 
appearance  had  altered  very  little  in  the  ten  years  of 
her  only  son's  marriage.  Whatever  fresh  realizations 
of  the  inevitably  widening  separation  between  parent 
and  child  these  years  had  brought  her,  she  had  kept 
to  Jierself.  She  had  watched  her  daughte!r-in-law 
sometimes  with  sympathy,  sometimes  with  perplexity, 
always  with  a  jealous  resolve  to  let  no  shadow  of 
jealousy  fall  between  them.  Marjorie  had  been  sweet 
and  friendly  to  her,  but  after  the  first  outburst  of 
enthusiastic  affection,  she  had  neither  offered  nor 
invited  confidences.  Old  Mrs.  Trafford  had  talked 
of  Marjorie  to  her  son  guardedly,  and  had  marked 
and  respected  a  growing  indisposition  on  his  part  to 
discuss  his  wife.  For  a  year  or  so  after  his  marriage 
she  had  ached  at  times  with  a  sense  of  nearly  intoler- 
able loneliness,  and  then  the  new  interests  she  had 
found  for  herself  had  won  their  way  against  this  de- 
pression. The  new  insurrectionary  movement  of  wo- 
men that  had  distinguished  those  years  had  attacked 
her  by  its  emotion  and  repelled  her  by  its  crudity,  and 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES         409 

she  had  resolved,  quite  in  the  spirit  of  the  man  who 
had  shaped  her  life,  to  make  a  systematic  study  of  all 
the  contributory  strands  that  met  in  this  difficult 
tangle.  She  tried  to  write,  but  she  found  that  the 
poetic  gift,  the  gift  of  the  creative  and  illuminating 
phrase  which  alone  justifies  writing,  was  denied  to 
her,  and  so  she  sought  to  make  herself  wise,  to  read 
and  hear,  and  discuss  and  think  over  these  things,  and 
perhaps  at  la(st  inspire  and  encourage  (wrfting}  in 
others. 

Her  circle  of  intimates  grew,  and  she  presently 
remarked  with  a  curious  interest  that  while  she  had 
lost  the  confidences  of  her  own  son  and  his  wife,  she 
was  becoming  the  confidant  of  an  increasing  number 
of  other  people.  They  came  to  her,  she  perceived, 
because  she  was  receptive  and  sympathetic  and  with- 
out a  claim  upon  them  or  any  interest  to  complicate 
the  freedoms  of  their  speech  with  her.  They  came  to 
her,  because  she  did  not  belong  to  them  nor  they  to 
her.  It  is,  indeed,  the  defect  of  all  formal  and  es- 
tablished relationship,  that  it  embarrasses  speech,  and 
taints  each  phase  in  intercourse  with  the  flavour  of 
diplomacy.  One  can  be  far  more  easily  outspoken 
to  a  casual  stranger  one  may  never  see  again  than  to 
that  inseparable  other,  who  may  misinterpret,  who 
may  disapprove  or  misunderstand,  and  who  will  cer- 
tainly in  the  measure  of  that  discord  remember. . . . 

It  became  at  last  a  matter  of  rejoicing  to  Mrs. 
Trafford  that  the  ties  of  the  old  instinctive  tenderness 
between  herself  and  her  son,  the  memories  of  pain  and 
tears  and  the  passionate  conflict  of  childhood,  were 
growing  so  thin  and  lax  and  inconsiderable,  that  she 
could  even  hope  some  day  to  talk  to  him  again — al- 
most as  she  talked  to  the  young  men  and  young  wo- 
men who  drifted  out  of  the  unknown  to  her  and  sat 


410  MARRIAGE 

in  her  little  room  and  sought  to  express  their  perplex- 
ities and  listened  to  her  advice.  .  .  . 

It  seemed  to  her  that  afternoon  the  wished-for  day 
had  come. 

Trafford  found  her  just  returned  from  a  walk  in 
Kensington  Gardens  and  writing  a  note  at  her  desk 
under  the  narrow  sunlit  window  that  looked  upon  the 
High  Street.  "  Finish  your  letter,  little  mother,"  he 
said,  and  took  possession  of  the  hearthrug. 

iWhen  she  had  sealed  and  addressed  her  letter,  she 
turned  her  head  and  found  him  looking  at  his  father's 
portrait. 

"  Done  ?"  he  asked,  becoming  aware  of  her  eyes. 

She  took  her  letter  into  the  hall  and  returned  to 
him,  closing  the  door  behind  her. 

"  I'm  going  away,  little  mother,"  he  said  with  an 
unconvincing  off-handediiess.  "  I'm  going  to  take  a 
holiday." 

"Alone?" 

"  Yes.  I  want  a  change.  I'm  going  off  some- 
where— untrodden  ground  as  near  as  one  can  get  it 
nowadays — Labrador." 

Their  eyes  met  for  a  moment. 

"  Is  it  for  long?" 

"  The  best  part  of  a  year." 

"  I  thought  you  were  going  on  with  your  research 
work  again." 

"  No."     He  paused.    "  I'm  going  to  Labrador." 

"Why?"  she  asked. 

"  I'm  going  to  think." 

She  found  nothing  to  say  for  a  moment.  "  It's 
good,"  she  remarked,  "  to  think."  Then,  lest  she  her- 
self should  seem  to  be  thinking  too  enormously,  she 
rang  the  bell  to  order  the  tea  that  was  already  on  its 
way. 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          411 

"  It  surprises  a  mother,"  she  said,  when  the  maid 
had  come  and  gone,  "  when  her  son  surprises  her." 

"  You  see,"  he  repeated,  as  though  it  explained 
everything,  "  I  want  to  think." 

Then  after  a  pause  she  asked  some  questions  about 
Labrador ;  wasn't  it  very  cold,  very  desert,  very  dan- 
gerous and  bitter,  and  he  answered  informingly. 
How  was  he  going  to  stay  there  ?  He  would  go  up 
the  country  with  an  expedition,  build  a  hut  and  re- 
main behind.  Alone?  Yes — thinking.  Her  eyes 
rested  on  his  face  for  a  time.  "  It  will  be — lonely," 
she  said  after  a  pause. 

She  saw  him  as  a  little  still  speck  against  immense 
backgrounds  of  snowy  wilderness. 

The  tea-things  came  before  mother  and  son  were 
back  at  essentials  again.  Then  she  asked  abruptly: 
"  Why  are  you  going  away  like  this  ?" 

"  I'm  tired  of  all  this  business  and  finance,"  he 
said  after  a  pause. 

"  I  thought  you  would  be,"  she  answered  as  de- 
liberately. 

"  Yes.  I've  had  enough  of  things.  I  want  to  get 
clear.  And  begin  again  somehow." 

She  felt  they  both  hung  away  from  the  essential 
aspect.  Either  he  or  she  must  approach  it.  She 
decided  that  she  would,  that  it  was  a  less  difficult 
thing  for  her  than  for  him. 

"  And  Marjorie?"  she  asked. 

He  looked  into  his  mother's  eyes  very  quietly. 
"  You  see,"  he  went  on  deliberately  disregarding  her 
question,  "  I'm  beached.  I'm  aground.  I'm  spoilt 
now  for  the  old  researches — spoilt  altogether.  And  I 
don't  like  this  life  I'm  leading.  I  detest  it.  While  I 
was  struggling  it  had  a  kind  of  interest.  There  was 
an  excitement  in  piling  up  the  first  twenty  thousand. 
But  now — /It's  empty,  it's  aimless,  it's  incessant.  . ." 


412,  MARRIAGE 

He  paused.  She  turned  to  the  tea-things,  and  lit 
the  spirit  lamp  under  the  kettle.  It  seemed  a  little 
difficult  to  do,  and  her  hand  trembled.  When  she 
turned  on  him  again  it  was  with  an  effort. 

"  Does  Marjorie  like  the  life  you  are  leading?" 
she  asked,  and  pressed  her  lips  together  tightly. 

He  spoke  with  a  bitterness  in  his  voice  that  as- 
tonished her.  "Oh,  she  likes  it." 

"  Are  you  sure  ?" 

He  nodded. 

"  She  won't  like  it  without  you." 

"  Oh,  that's  too  much !  It's  her  world.  It's  what 
she's  done — what  she's  made.  She  can  have  it;  she 
can  keep  it.  I've  played  my  part  and  got  it  for  her. 
But  now — now  I'm  free  to  go.  I  will  go.  She's  got 
everything  else.  I've  done  my  half  of  the  bargain. 
But  my  soul's  my  own.  If  I  want  to  go  away  and 
think,  I  will.  Not  even  Marjorie  shall  stand  in  the 
way  of  that." 

She  made  no  answer  to  this  outburst  for  a  couple 
of  seconds.  Then  she  threw  out,  "  Why  shouldn't 
Marjorie  think,  too?" 

He  considered  that  for  some  moments.  "  She 
doesn't,"  he  said,  as  though  the  words  came  from  the 
roots  of  his  being. 

"  But  you  two " 

"  We  don't  talk.  It's  astonishing — how  we  don't. 
We  don't.  We  can't.  We  try  to,  and  we  can't.  And 
she  goes  her  way,  and  now — I  will  go  mine." 

"And  leave  her?" 

He  nodded. 

"In  London?" 

"  With  all  the  things  she  cares  for." 

"  Except  yourself." 

"  I'm  only  a  means — 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          413 

She  turned  her  quiet  face  to  him.     "  You  know," 
she  said,  "  that  isn't  true."  .  .  . 

"  No,"  she  repeated,  to  his  silent  contradiction. 

"  I've  watched  her,"  she  went  on.  "  You're  not  a 
means.  I'd  have  spoken  long  ago  if  I  had  thought 
that.  Haven't  I  watched?  Haven't  I  lain  awake 
through  long  nights  thinking  about  her  and  you, 
thinking  over  every  casual  mood,  every  little  sign — 
longing  to  help — helpless."  .  .  .  She  struggled  with 
herself,  for  she  was  weeping.  "It  has  come  to  this," 
she  said  in  a  whisper,  and  choked  back  a  flood  of 
tears. 

Trafford  stood  motionless,  watching  her.  She 
became  active.  She  moved  round  the  table.  She 
looked  at  the  kettle,  moved  the  cups  needlessly,  made 
tea,  and  stood  waiting  for  a  moment  before  she  pour- 
ed it  out.  "  It's  so  hard  to  talk  to  you,"  she  said, 
"  and  about  all  this.  ...  I  care  so  much.  For  her. 
And  for  you.  .  .  .  Words  don't  come,  dear  .  .  .  One 
says  stupid  things." 

She  poured  out  the  tea,  and  left  the  cups  steaming, 
and  came  and  stood  before  him. 

"  You  see,"  she  said,  "  you're  ill.  You  aren't 
just.  You've  come  to  an  end.  You  don't  know  where 
you  are  and  what  you  want  to  do.  Neither  does  she, 
my  dear.  She's  as  aimless  as  you — and  less  able  to 
help  it.  Ever  so  much  less  able." 

"  But  she  doesn't  show  it.  She  goes  on.  She 
wants  things  and  wants  things ' 

"  And  you  want  to  go  away.  It's  the  same  thing. 
It's  exactly  the  same  thing.  It's  dissatisfaction.  Life 
leaves  you  empty  and  craving — leaves  you  with  noth- 
ing to  do  but  little  immediate  things  that  turn  to  dust 
as  you  do  them.  It's  her  trouble,  just  as  it's  your 
trouble." 

"  But  she  doesn't  show  it." 


414.  MARRIAGE 

"  Women  don't.  Not  so  much.  Perhaps  even 
she  doesn't  know  it.  Half  the  women  in  our  world 
don't  know — and  for  a  woman  it's  so  much  easier  to 
go  on — so  many  little  things."  .  .  . 

Trafford  tried  to  grasp  the  intention  of  this. 
"  Mother,"  he  said,  "  I  mean  to  go  away." 

"But  think  of  her!" 

"  I've  thought.  Now  I've  got  to  think  of  myself." 

"  You  can't— without  her." 

"  I  will.    It's  what  I'm  resolved  to  do." 

"Go  right  away?" 

"  Right  away." 

"And  think?" 

He  modded. 

"  Find  out — what  it  all  means,  my  boy?" 

"  Yes.     So  far  as  I'm  concerned." 

"And  then ?" 

"  Come   back,   I   suppose.      I   haven't  thought." 

"To  her?" 

He  didn't  answer.  She  went  and  stood  beside  him, 
leaning  upon  the  mantel.  "  Godwin,"  she  said,  "she'd 
only  be  further  behind.  .  .  .  You've  got  to  take  her 
with  you." 

He  stood  still  and  silent. 

"You've  got  to  think  things  out  with  her.  If 
you  don't " 

"  I  can't." 

"  Then  you  ought  to  go  away  with  her "  She 

stopped. 

"  For  good?"  he  asked. 

"  Yes." 

They  were  both  silent  for  a  space.  Then  Mrs. 
Trafford  gave  her  mind  to  the  tea'  that  was  cooling 
in  the  cups,  and  added  milk  and  sugar.  She  spoke 
again  with  the  table  between  them. 

"  I've  thought  so  much  of  these  things,"  she  said 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          415 

with  the  milk- jug  in  her  hand.  "  It's  not  only  you 
two,  but  others.  And  all  the  movement  about  us. ... 
Marriage  isn't  what  it  was.  It's  become  a  different 
thing  because  women  have  become  human  beings. 

Only You  know,  Godwin,  all  these  things  are  so 

difficult  to  express.  Woman's  come  out  of  being  a 
slave,  and  yet  she  isn't  an  equal.  .  .  .  We've  had  a 
sort  of  sham  emancipation,  and  we  haven't  yet  come 
to  the  real  one." 

She  put  down  the  milk- jug  on  the  tray  with  an  air 
of  grave  deliberation.  "  If  you  go  away  from  her 
and  make  the  most  wonderful  discoveries  about  life 
and  yourself,  it's  no  good — unless  she  makes  them 
too.  It's  no  good  at  all.  .  .  .  You  can't  live  without 
her  in  the  end,  any  more  than  she  can  live  without 
you.  You  may  think  you  can,  but  I've  watched  you. 
You  don't  want  to  go  away  from  her,  you  want  to  go 
away  from  the  world  that's  got  hold  of  her,  from  the 
dresses  and  parties  and  the  competition  and  all  this 
complicated  flatness  we  have  to  live  in.  ...  It 
wouldn't  worry  you  a  bit,  if  it  hadn't  got  hold  of  her. 
You  don't  want  to  get  out  of  it  for  your  own  sake. 
You  are  out  of  it.  You  are  as  much  out  of  it  as  any 
one  can  be.  Only  she  holds  you  in  it,  because  she 
isn't  out  of  it.  Your  going  away  will  do  nothing. 
She'll  still  be  in  it — and  still  have  her  hold  on  you. 
.  .  .  You've  got  to  take  her  away.  Or  else — if 
you  go  away — in  the  end  it  will  be  just  like  a  ship, 
Godwin,  coming  back  to  its  moorings." 

She  watched  his  thoughtful  face  for  some  mo- 
ments, then  arrested  herself  just  in  time  in  the  act  of 
putting  a  second  portion  of  sugar  into  each  of  the 
cups.  She  handed  her  son  his  tea,  and  he  took  it 
mechanically.  "  You're  a  wise  little  mother,"  he  said. 
"  I  didn't  see  things  in  that  light.  ...  I  wonder  if 
you're  right." 


416  MARRIAGE 

"  I  know  I  am,"  she  said. 

"  I've  thought  more  and  more, — it  was  Marjorie." 

"  It's  the  world." 

"  Women  made  the  world.  All  the  dress  and  dis- 
play and  competition." 

Mrs.  Trafford  thought.  "  Sex  made  the  world. 
Neither  men  nor  women.  But  the  world  has  got  hold 
of  the  women  tighter  than  it  has  the  men.  They're 
deeper  in."  She  looked  up  into  his  face.  "  Take  her 
with  you,"  she  said,  simply. 

"  She  won't  come,"  said  Trafford,  after  consider- 
ing it. 

Mrs.  Trafford  reflected.  "  She'll  come — if  you 
make  her,"  she  said. 

"  She'll  want  to  bring  two  housemaids." 

"  I  don't  think  you  know  Marjorie  as  well  as  I 
do." 

"  But  she  can't " 

"  She  can.  It's  you — you'll  want  to  take  two 
housemaids  for  her.  Even  you.  .  .  .  Men  are  not  fair 
to  women." 

Trafford  put  his  untasted  tea  upon  the  mantel- 
shelf, and  confronted  his  mother  with  a  question 
point  blank.  "  Does  Marjorie  care  for  me?"  he  asked. 

"  You're  the  sun  of  her  world." 

"  But  she  goes  her  way." 

She's  clever,  she's  full  of  life,  full  of  activities, 
eager  to  make  and  arrange  and  order;  but  there's 
nothing  she  is,  nothing  she  makes,  that  doesn't  centre 
on  you." 

"  But  if  she  cared,  she'd  understand !" 

"  My  dear,  do  you  understand  ?" 

He  stood  musing.  "  I  had  everything  clear,"  he 
said.  "  I  saw  my  way  to  Labrador.  ..." 

Her  little  clock  pinged  the  hour.  "Good  God!" 
he  said,  "  I'm  to  be  at  dinner  somewhere  at  seven. 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES         417 

We're  going  to  a  first  night.  With  the  Bernards,  I 
think.  Then  I  suppose  we'll  have  a  supper.  Always 
life  is  being  slashed  to  tatters  by  these  things. 
Always.  One  thinks  in  snatches  of  fifty  minutes. 
It's  dementia.  .  .  ." 

§7 

They  dined  at  the  Loretto  Restaurant  with  the 
Bernards  and  Richard  Hampden  and  Mrs.  Godwin 
Capes,  the  dark-eyed,  quiet-mannered  wife  of  the 
dramatist,  a  woman  of  impulsive  speech  and  long 
silences,  who  had  subsided  from  an  early  romance 
(Capes  had  been  divorced  for  her  while  she  was  still  a 
mere  girl)  into  a  markedly  correct  and  exclusive 
mother  of  daughters.  Through  the  dinner  Marjorie 
was  watching  Trafford  and  noting  the  deep  preoc- 
cupation of  his  manner.  He  talked  a  little  to  Mrs. 
Bernard  until  it  was  time  for  Hampden  to  entertain 
her,  then  finding  Mrs.  Capes  was  interested  in  Ber- 
nard, he  lapsed  into  thought.  Presently  Marjorie 
discovered  his  eyes  scrutinizing  herself. 

She  hoped  the  play  would  catch  his  mind,  but  the 
play  seemed  devised  to  intensify  his  sense  of  the  taw- 
dry unreality  of  contemporary  life.  Bernard  filled 
the  intervals  with  a  conventional  enthusiasm.  Capes 
didn't  appear. 

"  He  doesn't  seem  to  care  to  see  his  things,"  his 
wife  explained. 

"It's  so  brilliant,"  said  Bernard. 

"  He  has  to  do  it,"  said  Mrs.  Capes  slowly,  her 
sombre  eyes  estimating  the  crowded  stalls  below.  "It 
isn't  what  he  cares  to  do." 

The  play  was  in  fact  an  admirable  piece  of  Eng- 
lish stagecraft,  and  it  dealt  exclusively  with  that  un- 
real other  world  of  beings  the  English  theatre  has 


418  MARRIAGE 

for  its  own  purposes  developed.  Just  as  Greece 
through  the  ages  evolved  and  polished  and  perfected 
the  idealized  life  of  its  Homeric  poems,  so  the  British 
mind  has  evolved  their  Stage  Land  to  embody  its 
more  honourable  dreams,  full  of  heroic  virtues,  in- 
credible honour,  genial  worldliness,  childish  villainies, 
profound  but  amiable  waiters  and  domestics,  pathetic 
shepherds  and  preposterous  crimes.  Capes,  needing 
an  income,  had  mastered  the  habits  and  customs  of 
this  imagined  world  as  one  learns  a  language ;  success 
endorsed  his  mastery;  he  knew  exactly  how  deeply 
to  underline  an  irony  and  just  when  it  is  fit  and  pro- 
per for  a  good  man  to  call  upon  "  God !"  or  cry  out 
"  Damn !"  In  this  play  he  had  invented  a  situation 
in  which  a  charming  and  sympathetic  lady  had  killed 
a  gross  and  drunken  husband  in  self-defence,  almost 
but  not  quite  accidentally,  and  had  then  appealed  to 
the  prodigious  hero  for  assistance  in  the  resulting 
complications.  At  a  great  cost  of  mental  suffering 
to  himself  he  had  told  his  First  and  Only  Lie  to 
shield  her.  Then  years  after  he  had  returned  to 
England — the  first  act  happened,  of  course  in  India 
— to  find  her  on  the  eve  of  marrying,  without  any 
of  the  preliminary  confidences  common  among  human 
beings,  an  old  school  friend  of  his.  (In  plays  all 
Gentlemen  have  been  at  school  together,  and  one  has 
been  the  other's  fag.)  The  audience  had  to  be  inter- 
ested in  the  problem  of  what  the  prodigious  hero  was 
to  do  in  this  prodigious  situation.  Should  he  main- 
tain a  colossal  silence,  continue  his  shielding,  and  let 
his  friend  marry  the  murderess  saved  by  his  perjury, 

or ?   .    .    .  The  dreadful  quandary!   Indeed,  the 

absolute — inconvenience ! 

Marjorie  watched  Trafford  in  the  corner  of  the 
box,  as  he  listened  rather  contemptuously  to  the 
statement  of  the  evening's  Problem  and  then  lapsed 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES         419 

again  into  a  brooding  quiet.  She  wished  she  under- 
stood his  moods  better.  She  felt  there  was  more  in 
this  than  a  mere  resentment  at  her  persistence  about 
the  new  house.  .  .  . 

Why  didn't  he  go  on  with  things?  .  .  . 

This  darkling  mood  of  his  had  only  become  mani- 
fest to  her  during  the  last  three  or  four  years  of  their 
life.  Previously,  of  course,  he  had  been  irritable 
at  times. 

Were  they  less  happy  now  than  they  had  been  in 
the  little  house  in  Chelsea?  It  had  really  been  a 
horrible  little  house.  And  yet  there  had  been  a 
brightness  then — a  nearness.  .  .  . 

She  found  her  mind  wandering  away  upon  a  sort 
of  stock-taking  expedition.  How  much  of  real  hap- 
piness had  she  and  Trafford  had  together?  They 
ought  by  every  standard  to  be  so  happy.  .  .  . 

She  declined  the  Bernard's  invitation  to  a  chafing- 
dish  supper,  and  began  to  talk  so  soon  as  she  and 
Trafford  had  settled  into  the  car. 

"  Rag,"  she  said,  "  something's  the  matter?" 

"  Well— yes." 

"The  house?" 

"  Yes— the  house." 

Marjorie  considered  through  a  little  interval. 

"  Old  man,  why  are  you  so  prejudiced  against  a 
bigger  house?" 

"  Oh,  because  the  one  we  have  bores  me,  and  the 
next  one  will  bore  me  more." 

"But  try  it." 

"  I  don't  want  to." 

"  Well,"  she  said  and  lapsed  into  silence. 

"  And  then,"  he  asked,  "  what  are  we  going  to 
do?" 

"  Going  to  do — when  ?" 

"  After  the  new  house " 


420  MARRIAGE 

"  I'm  going  to  open  out,"  she  said. 

He  made  no  answer. 

"  I  want  to  open  out.  I  want  you  to  take  your 
place  in  the  world,  the  place  you  deserve." 

"A  four-footman  place?" 

"  Oh!  the  house  is  only  a  means." 

He  thought  upon  that.  "  A  means,"  he  asked, 
"  to  what?  Look  here,  Marjorie,  what  do  you  think 
you  are  up  to  with  me  and  yourself?  What  do  you 
see  me  doing — in  the  years  ahead?" 

She  gave  him  a  silent  and  thoughtful  profile  for 
a  second  or  so. 

"  At  first  I  suppose  you  are  going  on  with  your 
researches." 

"Well?" 

"  Then 1  must  tell  you  what  I  think  of  you, 

Rag.  Politics " 

"Good  Lord!" 

"  You've  a  sort  of  power.  You  could  make  things 
noble." 

"And  then?     Office?" 

"  Why  not?     Look  at  the  little  men  they  are." 

"  And  then  perhaps  a  still  bigger  house  ?" 

"  You're  not  fair  to  me." 

He  pulled  up  the  bearskin  over  his  knees. 

"  Marjorie!"  he  said.  "  You  see We  aren't 

going  to  do  any  of  those  things  at  all.  .  . .  No!  .  . ." 

"  I  can't  go  on  with  my  researches,"  he  explained. 
"  That's  what  you  don't  understand.  I'm  not  able 
to  get  back  to  work.  I  shall  never  do  any  good  re- 
search again.  That's  the  real  trouble,  Marjorie, 

and  it  makes  all  the  difference.  As  for  politics I 

can't  touch  politics.  I  despise  politics.  I  think  this 
empire  and  the  monarchy  and  Lords  and  Commons 
and  patriotism  and  social  reform  and  all  the  rest  of 
it,  silly,  silly  beyond  words;  temporary,  accidental, 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          421 

foolish,  a  mere  stop-gap — like  a  gipsey's  round- 
about in  a  place  where  one  will  presently  build  a 
house.  .  .  .  You  don't  help  make  the  house  by  riding 
on  the  roundabout.  .  .  .  There's  no  clear  knowledge 
— no  clear  purpose.  .  .  .  Only  research  matters — 
and  expression  perhaps — I  suppose  expression  is  a 
sort  of  research — until  we  get  that — that  sufficient 
knowledge.  And  you  see,  I  can't  take  up  my  work 
again.  I've  lost  something.  .  .  ." 

She  waited. 

"  I've  got  into  this  stupid  struggle  for  winning 
money,"  he  went  on,  "  and  I  feel  like  a  woman  must 
feel  who's  made  a  success  of  prostitution.  I've  been 
prostituted.  I  feel  like  some  one  fallen  and  diseased 
.  .  .  .  Business  and  prostitution;  they're  the  same 
thing.  All  business  is  a  sort  of  prostitution,  all  pros- 
titution is  a  sort  of  business.  Why  should  one  sell 
one's  brains  any  more  than  one  sells  one's  body?  .  .  . 
It's  so  easy  to  succeed  if  one  has  good  brains  and 
cares  to  do  it,  and  doesn't  let  one's  attention  or 
imagination  wander — and  it's  so  degrading.  Hope- 
lessly degrading.  .  .  .  I'm  sick  of  this  life,  Mar- 
jorie.  I  don't  want  to  buy  things.  I'm  sick  of  buying. 
I'm  at  an  end.  I'm  clean  at  an  end.  It's  exactly  as 
though  suddenly  in  walking  through  a  great  house 
one  came  on  a  passage  that  ended  abruptly  in  a 
door,  which  opened — on  nothing!  Nothing!" 

"  This  is  a  mood,"  she  whispered  to  his  pause. 

"  It  isn't  a  mood,  it's  a  fact.  .  .  .  I've  got  nothing 
ahead,  and  I  don't  know  how  to  get  back.  My 
life's  no  good  to  me  any  more.  I've  spent  myself." 

She  looked  at  him  with  dismayed  eyes.  "  But," 
she  said,  "  this  is  a  mood." 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  no  mood,  but  conviction.  I 
know.  .  .  ." 


422  MARRIAGE 

He  started.  The  car  had  stopped  at  their  house, 
and  Malcolm  was  opening  the  door  of  the  car.  They 
descended  silently,  and  went  upstairs  in  silence. 

He  came  into  her  room  presently  and  sat  down  by 
her  fireside.  She  had  gone  to  her  dressing-table  and 
unfastened  a  necklace;  now  with  this  winking  and 
glittering  in  her  hand  she  came  and  stood  beside  him. 

"  Rag,"  she  said,  "  I  don't  know  what  to  say. 
This  isn't  so  much  of  a  surprise.  ...  I  felt  that  some- 
how life  was  disappointing  you,  that  I  was  disap- 
pointing you.  I've  felt  it  endless  times,  but  more  so 
lately.  I  haven't  perhaps  dared  to  let  myself  know 
just  how  much.  . .  .  But  isn't  it  what  life  is?  Doesn't 
every  wife  disappoint  her  husband?  We're  none  of 
us  inexhaustible.  After  all,  we've  had  a  good  time; 
isn't  it  a  little  ungrateful  to  forget?  .  .  ." 

"  Look  here,  Rag,"  she  said.  "  I  don't  know 
what  to  do.  If  I  did  know,  I  would  do  it.  ...  What 
are  we  to  do  ?" 

"  Think,"  he  suggested. 

"  We've  got  to  live  as  well  as  think." 

"  It's  the  immense  troublesome  futility  of — every- 
thing," he  said. 

"  Well — let  us  cease  to  be  futile.  Let  us  do. 
You  say  there  is  no  grip  for  you  in  research,  that 
you  despise  politics.  .  .  .  There's  no  end  of  trouble 
and  suffering.  Cannot  we  do  social  work,  social 
reform,  change  the  lives  of  others  less  fortunate  than 
ourselves.  .  .  ." 

"  Who  are  we  that  we  should  tamper  with  the  lives 
of  others?" 

"  But  one  must  do  something." 

He  thought  that  over. 

"  No,"  he  said  "  that's  the  universal  blunder  now- 
adays. One  must  do  the  right  thing.  And  we  don't 


TR AFFORD  DECIDES          423 

know  the  right  thing,  Marjorie.  That's  the  very 
heart  of  the  trouble.  .  .  .  Does  this  life  satisfy  you? 
If  it  did  would  you  always  be  so  restless?  .  .  ." 

"  But,"  she  said,  "  think  of  the  good  things  in 
life?" 

"  It's  just  the  good,  the  exquisite  things  in  life, 
that  make  me  rebel  against  this  life  we  are  leading. 
It's  because  I've  seen  the  streaks  of  gold  that  I 
know  the  rest  for  dirt.  When  I  go  cheating  and  schem- 
ing to  my  office,  and  come  back  to  find  you  squander- 
ing yourself  upon  a  horde  of  chattering,  overdressed 
women,  when  I  think  that  that  is  our  substance  and 
everyday  and  what  we  are,  then  it  is  I  remember  most 
the  deep  and  beautiful  things.  ...  It  is  impossible, 
dear,  it  is  intolerable  that  life  was  made  beautiful 
for  us — just  for  these  vulgarities." 

"  Isn't  there "  She  hesitated.    "  Love— still?" 

"  But Has  it  been  love  ?     Love  is  a  thing 

that  grows.  But  we  took  it — as  people  take  flowers 
out  of  a  garden,  cut  them  off,  put  them  in  water.  .  .  . 
How  much  of  our  daily  life  has  been  love?  How 
much  of  it  mere  consequences  of  the  love  we've  left 
behind  us?  .  .  .  We've  just  cohabited  and  'made 
love' — you  and  I — and  thought  of  a  thousand  other 
things.  .  .  ." 

He  looked  up  at  her.  "  Oh,  I  love  a  thousand 
things  about  you,"  he  said.  "  But  do  I  love  you, 
Marjorie?  Have  I  got  you?  Haven't  I  lost  you — 
haven't  we  both  lost  something,  the  very  heart  of  it 
all?  Do  you  think  that  we  were  just  cheated  by 
instinct,  that  there  wasn't  something  in  it  we  felt  and 
thought  was  there  ?  And  where  is  it  now  ?  Where  is 
that  brightness  and  wonder,  Marjorie,  and  the  pride 
and  the  immense  unlimited  hope?" 

She  was  still  for  a  moment,  then  knelt  very  swift- 
ly before  him  and  held  out  her  arms. 


424  MARRIAGE 

"  Oh  Rag !"  she  said,  with  a  face  of  tender  beauty. 
He  took  her  finger  tips  in  his,  dropped  them  and  stood 
up  above  her. 

"  My  dear,"  he  cried,  "  my  dear !  why  do  you 
always  want  to  turn  love  into — touches?  .  .  .  Stand 
up  again.  Stand  up  there,  my  dear;  don't  think  I've 
ceased  to  love  you,  but  stand  up  there  and  let  me 
talk  to  you  as  one  man  to  another.  If  we  let  this  oc- 
casion slide  to  embraces.  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  short. 

She  crouched  before  the  fire  at  his  feet.  "  Go  on," 
she  said,  "  go  on." 

"  I  feel  now  that  all  our  lives  now,  Marjorie 

We  have  come  to  a  crisis.  I  feel  that  now now 

is  the  time.  Either  we  shall  save  ourselves  now  or 
we  shall  never  save  ourselves.  It  is  as  if  something 
had  gathered  and  accumulated  and  could  wait  no 

longer.  If  we  do  not  seize  this  opportunity Then 

our  lives  will  go  on  as  they  have  gone  on,  will  become 
more  and  more  a  matter  of  small  excitements  and 
elaborate  comforts  and  distraction.  .  .  ." 

He  stopped  this  halting  speech  and  then  broke 
out  again. 

"  Oh !  why  should  the  life  of  every  day  conquer  us  ? 
iWhy  should  generation  after  generation  of  men  have 
these  fine  beginnings,  these  splendid  dreams  of  youth, 
attempt  so  much,  achieve  so  much  and  then,  then 
become — Ms '  Look  at  this  room,  this  litter  of  little 
satisfactions!  Look  at  your  pretty  books  there,  a 
hundred  minds  you  have  pecked  at,  bright  things 
of  the  spirit  that  attracted  you  as  jewels  attract  a 
jackdaw.  Look  at  the  glass  and  silver,  and  that  silk 
from  China !  And  we  are  in  the  full  tide  of  our  years, 
Marjorie.  Now  is  the  very  crown  and  best  of  our 
lives.  And  this  is  what  we  do,  we  sample,  we  accumu- 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          425 

late.  For  this  we  loved,  for  this  we  hoped1.  Do  you 
remember  when  we  were  young — that  life  seemed  so 
splendid — it  was  intolerable  we  should  ever  die?  .  .  . 
The  splendid  dream !  The  intimations  of  greatness  ! 
.  .  .  .The  miserable  failure!" 

He  raised  clenched  fists.  "  I  won't  stand  it, 
Marjorie.  I  won't  endure  it.  Somehow,  in  some  way, 
I  will  get  out  of  this  life — and  you  with  me.  I  have 
been  brooding  upon  this  and  brooding,  but  now  I 
know.  .  .  ." 

"  But  how  ?"  asked  Mar j  orie,  with  her  bare  arms 
about  her  knees,  staring  into  the  fire.  "  How?" 

"  We  must  get  out  of  its  constant  interruptions, 
its  incessant  vivid,  petty  appeals.  .  .  ." 

"We  might  go  away — to  Switzerland." 

"  We  went  to  Switzerland.  Didn't  we  agree — it 
was  our  second  honeymoon.  It  isn't  a  honeymoon 
we  need.  No,  we'll  have  to  go  further  than  that." 

A  sudden  light  broke  upon  Marjorie's  mind.  She 
realized  he  had  a  plan.  She  lifted  a  fire-lit  face  to 
him  and  looked  at  him  with  steady  eyes  and  asked 

"Where?" 

"  Ever  so  much  further." 

"Where?" 

"  I  don't  know." 

"  You  do.     You've  planned  something." 

"  I  don't  know,  Marjorie.  At  least — I  haven't 
made  up  my  mind.  Where  it  is  very  lonely.  Cold  and 

remote.  Away  from  all  this "  His  mind  stopped 

short,  and  he  ended  with  a  cry :  "  Oh !  God !  how  I 
want  to  get  out  of  all  this !" 

He  sat  down  in  her  armchair,  and  bowed  his  face 
on  his  hands. 

Then  abruptly  he  stood  up  and  went  out  of  the 
room. 


426  MARRIAGE 

§8 

When  in  five  minutes'  time  Ke  came  back  into  her 
room  she  was  still  upon  her  hearthrug  before  the  fire, 
with  her  necklace  in  her  hand,  the  red  reflections  of 
the  flames  glowing  and  winking  in  her  jewels  and  in 
her  eyes.  He  came  and  sat  again  in  her  chair. 

"  I  have  been  ranting,"  he  said.  "  I  feel  I've 
been — eloquent.  You  make  me  feel  like  an  actor- 
manager,  in  a  play  by  Capes.  .  .  .  You  are  the  most 
difficult  person  for  me  to  talk  to  in  all  the  world — be- 
cause you  mean  so  much  to  me." 

She  moved  impulsively  and  checked  herself  and 
crouched  away  from  him.  "  I  mustn't  touch  your 
hand,"  she  whispered. 

"  I  want  to  explain." 

"  You've  got  to  explain." 

"  I've  got  quite  a  definite  plan.  .  .  .  But  a  sort 
of  terror  seized  me.  It  was  like — shyness." 

"  I  know.     I  knew  you  had  a  plan." 

"  You  see.  ...  I  mean  to  go  to  Labrador." 

He  leant  forward  with  his  elbows  on  his  knees  and 
his  hands  extended,  explanatory.  He  wanted  intense- 
ly that  she  should  understand  and  agree  and  his  de- 
sire made  him  clumsy,  now  slow  and  awkward,  now 
glibly  and  unsatisfyingly  eloquent.  But  she  compre- 
hended his  quality  better  than  he  knew.  They  were  to 
go  away  to  Labrador,  this  snowy  desert  of  which  she 
had  scarcely  heard,  to  camp  in  the  very  heart  of  the 
wilderness,  two  hundred  miles  or  more  from  any  hu- 
man habitation 

"  But  how  long?"  she  asked  abruptly. 

"  The  better  part  of  a  year." 

"And  we  are  to  talk?" 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  "  talk  and  think  ourselves  to- 
gether— oh! — the  old  phrases  carry  it  all — find 
God.  .  ." 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          42T 

"  It  is  what  I  dreamt  of,  Rag,  years  ago." 

"  Will  you  come,"  he  cried,  "  out  of  all  this?" 

She  leant  across  the  hearthrug,  and  seized  and 
kissed  his  hand.  .  .  . 

Then,  with  one  of  those  swift  changes  of  hers, 
she  was  in  revolt.  "  But,  Rag,"  she  exclaimed,  "  this 
is  dreaming.  We  are  not  free.  There  are  the  chil- 
dren! Rag!  We  cannot  leave  the  children!" 

"  We  can,"  he  said.     "  We  must." 

"  But,  my  dear ! — our  duty ! 

"  Is  it  a  mother's  duty  always  to  keep  with  her 
children?  They  will  be  looked  after,  their  lives  are 
organized,  there  is  my  mother  close  at  hand.  .  .  . 
What  is  the  good  of  having  children  at  all — unless 
their  world  is  to  be  better  than  our  world?  .  .  .What 
are  we  doing  to  save  them  from  the  same  bathos  as 
this — to  which  we  have  come?  We  give  them  food 
and  health  and  pictures  and  lessons,  that's  all  very 
well  while  they  are  just  little  children ;  but  we've  got 
no  religion  to  give  them,  no  aim,  no  sense  of  a  gen- 
eral purpose.  What  is  the  good  of  bread  and  health — 
and  no  worship  ?  .  .  .  What  can  we  say  to  them  when 
they  ask  us  why  we  brought  them  into  the  world? — 
We  happened — you  happened.  What  are  we  to  tell 
them  when  they  demand  the  purpose  of  all  this  train- 
ing, all  these  lessons?  When  they  ask  what  we  are 
preparing  them  for?  Just  that  you,  too,  may  have 
children!  Is  that  any  answer?  Marjorie,  it's  com- 
mon-sense to  try  this  over — to  make  this  last  supreme 
effort — just  as  it  will  be  common-sense  to  separate 
if  we  can't  get  the  puzzle  solved  together." 

"Separate!" 

"Separate.     Why  not?     We  *an  afford  it.     Of 
course,  we  shall  separate." 
"  But  Rag!— separate!" 
He   faced   her   protest   squarely.     "  Life   is   not 


428  MARRIAGE 

worth  living,"  he  said,  "  unless  it  has  more  to  hold 
it  together  than  ours  has  now.  If  we  cannot  escape 
together,  then — I  will  go  alone."  .  .  . 

§9 

They  parted  that  night  resolved  to  go  to  Labra- 
dor together,  with  the  broad  outline  of  their  sub- 
sequent journey  already  drawn.  Each  lay  awake 
far  into  the  small  hours  thinking  of  this  purpose  and 
of  one  another,  with  a  strange  sense  of  renewed  as- 
sociation. Each  woke  to  a  morning  of  sunshine 
heavy-eyed.  Each  found  that  overnight  decision 
remote  and  incredible.  It  was  like  something  in  a 
book  or  a  play  that  had  moved  them  very  deeply. 
They  came  down  to  breakfast,  and  helped  themselves 
after  the  wonted  fashion  of  several  years,  Marjorie 
with  a  skilful  eye  to  the  large  order  of  her  household ; 
the  Times  had  one  or  two  characteristic  letters  which 
interested  them  both ;  there  was  the  usual  picturesque 
irruption  of  the  children  and  a  distribution  of  early 
strawberries  among  them.  Trafford  had  two  notes 
in  his  correspondence  which  threw  a  new  light  upon 
the  reconstruction  of  the  Norton-Batsford  company 
in  which  he  was  interested ;  he  formed  a  definite  con- 
clusion upon  the  situation,  and  went  quite  normally 
to  his  study  and  the  telephone  to  act  upon  that. 

It  was  only  as  the  morning  wore  on  that  it  be- 
came real  to  him  that  he  and  Marjorie  had  decided  to 
leave  the  world.  Then,  with  the  Norton-Batsford  bus- 
iness settled,  he  sat  at  his  desk  and  mused.  His 
apathy  passed.  His  imagination  began  to  present 
first  one  picture  and  then  another  of  his  retreat. 
He  walked  along  Oxford  Street  to  his  Club  thinking 
— "  soon  we  shall  be  out  of  all  this."  By  the  time  he 
was  at  lunch  in  his  Club,  Labrador  had  become  again 


TRAFFORD  DECIDES          429 

the  magic  refuge  it  had  seemed  the  day  before.  After 
lunch  he  went  to  work  in  the  library,  finding  out 
books  about  Labrador,  and  looking  up  the  details  of 
the  journey. 

But  his  sense  of  futility  and  hopeless  oppression 
had  vanished.  He  walked  along  the  corridor  and 
down  the  great  staircase,  and  without  a  trace  of  the 
despairful  hostility  of  the  previous  day,  passed  Blen- 
kins,  talking  grey  bosh  with  infinite  thoughtfulness. 
He  nodded  easily  to  Blenkins.  He  was  going  out  of 
it  all,  as  a  man  might  do  who  discovers  after  years 
of  weary  incarceration  that  the  walls  of  his  cell  are 
made  of  thin  paper.  The  time  when  Blenkins  seemed 
part  of  a  prison-house  of  routine  and  invincible 
stupidity  seemed  ten  ages  ago. 

In  Pall  Mall  Trafford  remarked  Lady  Gram- 
pians and  the  Countess  of  Claridge,  two  women  of 
great  influence,  in  a  big  green  car,  on  the  way  no 
doubt  to  create  or  sustain  or  destroy ;  and  it  seemed 
to  him  that  it  was  limitless  ages  since  these  poor  old 
dears;  with  their  ridiculous  hats  and  their  ridiculous 
airs,  their  luncheons  and  dinners  and  dirty  aggressive 
old  minds,  had  sent  tidal  waves  of  competitive  anx- 
iety into  his  home.  .  .  . 

He  found  himself  jostling  through  the  shopping 
crowd  on  the  sunny  side  of  Regent  Street.  He  felt 
now  that  he  looked  over  the  swarming,  preoccupied 
heads  at  distant  things.  He  and  Marjorie  were  go- 
ing out  of  it  all,  going  clean  out  of  it  all.  They  were 
going  to  escape  from  society  and  shopping,  and  petty 
engagements  and  incessant  triviality — as  a  bird  flies 
up  out  of  weeds. 

§  10 

But  Marjorie  fluctuated  more  than  he  did. 
There  were  times  when  the  expedition  for  which  he 


430  MARRIAGE 

was  now  preparing  rapidly  and  methodically  seemed 
to  her  the  most  adventurously-beautiful  thing  that 
had  ever  come  to  her,  and  times  when  it  seemed  the 
maddest  and  most  hopeless  of  eccentricities.  There 
were  times  when  she  had  devastating  premonitions  of 
filth,  hunger,  strain  and  fatigue,  damp  and  cold,  when 
her  whole  being  recoiled  from  the  project,  when  she 
could  even  think  of  staying  secure  in  London  and 
letting  him  go  alone.  She  developed  complicated 
anxieties  for  the  children ;  she  found  reasons  for  fur- 
ther inquiries,  for  delay.  "  Why  not,"  she  suggested, 
"  wait  a  year?" 

"  No,"  he  said,  "  I  won't.  I  mean  we  are  to  do 
this,  and  do  it  now,  and  nothing  but  sheer  physical 
inability  to  do  it  will  prevent  my  carrying  it  out.  . .  . 
And  you?  Of  course  you  are  to  come.  I  can't  drag 
you  shrieking  all  the  way  to  Labrador ;  short  of  that 
I'm  going  to  make  you  come  with  me." 

She  sat  and  looked  up  at  him  with  dark  lights  in 
her  upturned  eyes,  and  a  little  added  warmth  in  her 
cheek.  "You've  never  forced  my  will  like  this  before," 
she  said,  in  a  low  voice.  "  Never." 

He  was  too  intent  upon  his  own  resolve  to  heed 
her  tones. 

"  It  hasn't  seemed  necessary  somehow,"  he  said, 
considering  her  statement.  "  Now  it  does." 

"  This  is  something  final,"  she  said. 

"  It  is  final." 

She  found  an  old  familiar  phrasing  running 
through  her  head,  as  she  sat  crouched  together,  look- 
ing up  at  his  rather  gaunt,  very  intent  face,  the 
speech  of  another  woman  echoing  to  her  across  a  vast 
space  of  years  :  "  Whither  thou  goest  I  will 

"  In  Labrador,"  he  began.  .  .  . 


CHAPTER  THE  THIRD 

THE  PILGRIMAGE  TO  LONELY  HUT. 


Marjorie  was  surprised  to  find1  how  easy  it  was  at 
last  to  part  from  her  children  and  go  with  Trafford. 

"  I  am  not  sorry,"  she  said,  "  not  a  bit  sorry — 
but  I  am  fearfully  afraid.  I  shall  dream  they  are 
ill.  ...  Apart  from  that,  it's  strange  how  you  grip 
me  and  they  don't.  .  .  ." 

In  the  train  to  Liverpool  she  watched  Trafford 
with  the  queer  feeling  which  comes  to  all  husbands 
and  wives  at  times  that  that  other  partner  is  indeed 
an  undiscovered  stranger,  just  beginning  to  show  per- 
plexing traits, — full  of  inconceivable  possibilities. 

For  some  reason  his  tearing  her  up  by  the  roots 
in  this  fashion  had  fascinated  her  imagination.  She 
felt  a  strange  new  wonder  at  him  that  had  in  it  just 
a  pleasant  faint  flavour  of  fear.  Always  before  she 
had  felt  a  curious  aversion  and  contempt  for  those 
servile  women  who  are  said  to  seek  a  master,  to  want 
to  be  mastered,  to  be  eager  even  for  the  physical 
subjugations  of  brute  force.  Now  she  could  at  least 
understand,  sympathize  even  with  them.  Not  only 
Trafford  surprised  her  but  herself.  She  found  she  was 
in  an  unwonted  perplexing  series  of  moods.  All  her 
feelings  struck  her  now  as  being  incorrect  as  well  as 
unexpected ;  not  only  had  life  become  suddenly  full 
of  novelty  but  she  was  making  novel  responses.  She 
felt  that  she  ought  to  be  resentful  and  tragically 
sorry  for  her  home  and  children.  She  felt  this  de- 
parture ought  to  have  the  quality  of  an  immense  sac- 
rifice, a  desperate  and  heroic  undertaking  for  Traf- 

431 


432  MARRIAGE 

ford's  sake.  Instead  she  could  detect  little  beyond 
an  adventurous  exhilaration  when  presently  she 
walked  the  deck  of  the  steamer  that  was  to  take  her 
to  St.  John's.  She  had  visited  her  cabin,  seen  her 
luggage  stowed  away,  and  now  she  surveyed  the 
Mersey  and  its  shipping  with  a  renewed  freshness 
of  mind.  She  was  reminded  of  the  day,  now  nearly 
nine  years  ago,  when  she  had  crossed  the  sea  for 
the  first  time — to  Italy.  Then,  too,  Trafford  had 
seemed  a  being  of  infinitely  wonderful  possibilities. 
....  What  were  the  children  doing? — that  ought 
to  have  been  her  preoccupation.  She  didn't  know; 
she  didn't  care !  Trafford  came  and  stood  beside  her, 
pointed  out  this  and  that  upon  the  landing  stage, 
no  longer  heavily  sullen,  but  alert,  interested,  almost 
gay.  .  .  . 

Neither  of  them  could  find  any  way  to  the  great 
discussion  they  had  set  out  upon,  in  this  voyage  to 
St.  John's.  But  there  was  plenty  of  time  before  them. 
Plenty  of  time!  They  were  both  the  prey  of  that 
uneasy  distraction  which  seems  the  inevitable  quality 
of  a  passenger  steamship.  They  surveyed  and  criti- 
cized their  fellow  travellers,  and  prowled  up  and  down 
through  the  long  swaying  days  and  the  cold  dark 
nights.  They  slept  uneasily  amidst  fog-horn  hoot- 
ings  and  the  startling  sounds  of  waves  swirling 
against  the  ports.  Marjorie  had  never  had  a  long  sea 
voyage  before ;  for  the  first  time  in  her  life  she  saw  all 
the  world,  through  a  succession  of  days,  as  a  circle  of 
endless  blue  waters,  with  the  stars  and  planets  and 
sun  and  moon  rising  sharply  from  its  rim.  Until 
one  has  had  a  voyage  no  one  really  understands  that 
old  Earth  is  a  watery  globe.  .  .  .  They  ran  into 
thirty  hours  of  storm,  which  subsided,  and  then  came 
a  slow  time  among  icebergs,  and  a  hooting,  dreary 
passage  through  fog.  The  first  three  icebergs  were 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  433 

marvels,  the  rest  bores ;  a  passing  collier  out  of  her 
course  and  pitching  heavily,  a  lonely  black  and  dirty 
ship  with  a  manner  almost  derelict,  filled  their 
thoughts  for  half  a  day.  Their  minds  were  in  a  state 
of  tedious  inactivity,  eager  for  such  small  interests 
and  only  capable  of  such  small  interests.  There  was 
no  hurry  to  talk,  they  agreed,  no  hurry  at  all,  until 
they  were  settled  away  ahead  there  among  the  snows. 
"  There  we  shall  have  plenty  of  time  for  every- 
thing. .  .  ." 

Came  the  landfall  and  then  St.  John's,  and  they 
found  themselves  side  by  side  watching  the  town  draw 
near.  The  thought  of  landing  and  transference  to 
another  ship  refreshed  them  both.  .  .  . 

They  were  going,  Trafford  said,  in  search  of 
God,  but  it  was  far  more  like  two  children  starting 
out  upon  a  holiday. 


There  was  trouble  and  procrastination  about  the 
half-breed  guides  that  Trafford  had  arranged  should 
meet  them  at  St.  John's,  and  it  was  three  weeks  from 
their  reaching  Newfoundland  before  they  got  them- 
selves and  their  guides  and  equipment  and  general 
stores  aboard  the  boat  for  Port  Dupre.  Thence  he 
had  planned  they  should  go  in  the  Gibson  schooner 
to  Manivikovik,  the  Marconi  station  at  the  mouth 
of  the  Green  River,  and  thence  past  the  new  pulp- 
mills  up  river  to  the  wilderness.  There  were  delays 
and  a  few  trivial,  troublesome  complications  in  car- 
rying out  this  scheme,  but  at  last  a  day  came  when 
Trafford  could  wave  good-bye  to  the  seven  people 
and  eleven  dogs  which  constituted  the  population  of 
Peter  Hammond's,  that  last  rude  outpost  of  civili- 
zation twenty  miles  above  the  pulp-mill,  and  turn 
his  face  in  good1  earnest  towards  the  wilderness. 


484  MARRIAGE 

Neither  he  nor  Marjorie  looked  back  at  the  head- 
land for  a  last  glimpse  of  the  little  settlement  they 
were  leaving.  Each  stared  ahead  over  the  broad, 
smooth  sweep  of  water,  broken  by  one  transverse  bar 
of  foaming  shallows,  and  scanned  the  low,  tree-clad 
hills  beyond  that  drew  together  at  last  in  the  dis- 
tant gorge  out  of  which  the  river  came.  The  morn- 
ing was  warm  and  full  of  the  promise  of  a  hot  noon, 
so  that  the  veils  they  wore  against  the  assaults  of 
sand-flies  and  mosquitoes  were  already  a  little  incon- 
venient. It  seemed  incredible  in  this  morning  glow 
that  the  wooded  slopes  along  the  shore  of  the  lake 
were  the  border  of  a  land  in  which  nearly  half  the 
inhabitants  die  of  starvation.  The  deep-laden  canoes 
swept  almost  noiselessly  through  the  water  with  a 
rhythmic  alternation  of  rush  and  pause  as  the  drip- 
ping paddles  drove  and  returned.  Altogether  there 
were  four  long  canoes  and  five  Indian  breeds  in  their 
party,  and  when  they  came  to  pass  through  shallows 
both  Marjorie  and  Trafford  took  a  paddle. 

They  came  to  the  throat  of  the  gorge  towards 
noon,  and  found  strong  flowing  deep  water  between 
its  high  purple  cliffs.  All  hands  had  to  paddle  again, 
and  it  was  only  when  they  came  to  rest  in  a  pool  to 
eat  a  midday  meal  and  afterwards  to  land  upon  a 
mossy  corner  for  a  stretch  and  a  smoke,  that  Mar- 
jorie discovered  the  peculiar  beauty  of  the  rock 
about  them.  On  the  dull  purplish-grey  surfaces 
played  the  most  extraordinary  mist  of  luminous 
iridescence.  It  fascinated  her.  Here  was  a  land 
whose  common  substance  had  this  gemlike  opales- 
cence.  But  her  attention  was  very  soon  withdrawn 
from  these  glancing  splendours. 

She  had  had  to  put  aside  her  veil  to  eat,  and  pre- 
sently she  felt  the  vividly  painful  stabs  of  the  black- 
fly  and  discovered  blood  upon  her  face.  A  bigger 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  435 

fly,  the  size  and  something  of  the  appearance  of  a 
small  wasp,  with  an  evil  buzz,  also  assailed  her  and 
Trafford.  It  was  a  bad  corner  for  flies ;  the  breeds 
even  were  slapping  their  wrists  and  swearing  under 
the  torment,  and1  every  one  was  glad  to  embark  and 
push  on  up  the  winding  gorge.  It  opened  out  for  a 
time,  and  then  the  wooded  shores  crept  in  again,  and 
in  another  half-hour  they  saw  ahead  of  them  a  long 
rush  of  foaming  waters  among  tumbled  rocks  that 
poured  down  from  a  brimming,  splashing  line  of  light 
against  the  sky.  They  crossed  the  river,  ran  the 
canoes  into  an  eddy  under  the  shelter  of  a  big  stone 
and  began  to  unload.  They  had  reached  their  first 
portage. 

The  rest  of  the  first  day  was  spent  in  packing  and 
lugging  first  the  cargoes  ajid  then  the  canoes  up 
through  thickets  and  over  boulders  and  across 
stretches  of  reindeer  moss  for  the  better  part  of  two 
miles  to  a  camping  ground  about  half-way  up  the 
rapids.  Marjorie  and  Trafford  tried  to  help  with  the 
carrying,  but  this  evidently  shocked  and  distressed 
the  men  too  much,  so  they  desisted  and  set  to  work 
cutting  wood  and  gathering  moss  for  the  fires  and 
bedding  for  the  camp.  When  the  iron  stove  was 
brought  up  the  man  who  had  carried  it  showed  them 
how  to  put  it  up  on  stakes  and  start  a  fire  in  it,  and 
then  Trafford  went  to  the  river  to  get  water,  and  Mar- 
jorie made  a  kind  of  flour  cake  in  the  frying-pan  in 
the  manner  an  American  woman  from  the  wilderness 
had  once  shown  her,  and  boiled  water  for  tea.  The 
twilight  had  deepened  to  night  while  the  men  were 
still  stumbling  up  the  trail  with  the  last  two  canoes. 

It  gave  Marjorie  a  curiously  homeless  feeling  to 
stand  there  in  the  open  with  the  sunset  dying  away 
below  the  black  scrubby  outlines  of  the  treetops  up- 
hill to  the  northwest,  and  to  realize  the  nearest  roof 


436  MARRIAGE 

was  already  a  day's  toilsome  journey  away.  The 
cool  night  breeze  blew  upon  her  bare  face  and  arms 
— for  now  the  insects  had  ceased  from  troubling  and 
she  had  cast  aside  gloves  and  veil  and  turned  up  her 
sleeves  to  cook — and  the  air  was  full  of  the  tumult 
of  the  rapids  tearing  seaward  over  the  rocks  below. 
Struggling  through  the  bushes  towards  her  was  an 
immense,  headless  quadruped  with  unsteady  legs 
and  hesitating  paces,  two  of  the  men  carrying  the 
last  canoe.  Two  others  were  now  assisting  Trafford 
to  put  up  the  little  tent  that  was  to  shelter  her,  and 
the  fifth  was  kneeling  beside  her  very  solemnly  and 
respectfully  cutting  slices  of  bacon  for  her  to  fry. 
The  air  was  very  sweet,  and  she  wished  she  could 
sleep  not  in  the  tent  but  under  the  open  sky. 

It  was  queer,  she  thought,  how  much  of  the  wrap- 
pings of  civilization  had  slipped  from  them  already. 
Every  day  of  the  journey  from  London  had  re- 
leased them  or  deprived  them — she  hardly  knew 
which — of  a  multitude  of  petty  comforts  and  easy 
accessibilities.  The  afternoon  toil  uphill  intensified 
the  effect  of  having  clambered  up  out  of  things — to 
this  loneliness,  this  twilight  openness,  this  simplicity. 

The  men  ate  apart  at  a  fire  they  made  for 
themselves,  and  after  Trafford  and  Marjorie  had 
supped  on  damper,  bacon  and  tea,  he  smoked.  They 
were  both  too  healthily  tired  to  talk  very  much. 
There  was  no  moon  but  a  frosty  brilliance  of  stars, 
the  air  which  had  been  hot  and  sultry  at  mid-day 
grew  keen  and  penetrating,  and  after  she  had  made 
him  tell  her  the  names  of  constellations  she  had  for- 
gotten, she  suddenly  perceived  the  wisdom  of  the 
tent,  went  into  it — it  was  sweet  and  wonderful  with 
sprigs  of  the  Labrador  tea-shrub — undressed,  and1 
had  hardly  rolled  herself  up  into  a  cocoon  of  blankets 
before  she  was  fast  asleep. 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  437 

She  was  awakened  by  a  blaze  of  sunshine  pour- 
ing into  the  tent,  a  smell  of  fried  bacon  and  Traf- 
ford's  voice  telling  her  to  get  up.  "  They've  gone  on 
with  the  first  loads,"  he  said.  "  Get  up,  wrap  your- 
self in  a  blanket,  and  come  and  bathe  in  the  river. 
It's  as  cold  as  ice." 

She  blinked  at  him.  "Aren't  you  stiff?"  she 
asked. 

"  I  was  stiffer  before  I  bathed,"  he  said. 

She  took  the  tin  he  offered  her.  (They  weren't  to 
see  china  cups  again  for  a  year. )  "  It's  woman's 
work  getting  tea,"  she  said  as  she  drank. 

"  You  can't  be  a  squaw  all  at  once,"  said  Traf- 
ford. 

§3 

After  Marjorie  had  taken  her  dip,  dried  roughly 
behind  a  bush,  twisted  her  hair  into  a  pigtail  and 
coiled  it  under  her  hat,  she  amused  herself  and  Traf- 
f  ord  as  they  clambered  up  through  rocks  and  willows 
to  the  tent  again  by  cataloguing  her  apparatus  of 
bath  and  toilette  at  Sussex  Square  and  tracing  just 
when  and  how  she  had  parted  from  each  item  on  the 
way  to  this  place. 

"  But  I  say!"  she  cried,  with  a  sudden,  sharp  note 
of  dismay,  "  we  haven't  soap !  This  is  our  last  cake 
almost.  I  never  thought  of  soap." 

"  Nor  I,"  said  Trafford. 

He  spoke  again  presently.  "  We  don't  turn  back 
for  soap,"  he  said. 

"  We  don't  turn  back  for  anything,"  said  Mar- 
jorie. "  Still — I  didn't  count  on  a  soapless  winter." 

"  I'll  manage  something,"  said  Trafford,  a  little 
doubtfully.  "  Trust  a  chemist.  ..." 

That  day  they  finished  the  portage  and  came  out 
upon  a  wide  lake  with  sloping  shores  and  a  distant 


438  MARRIAGE 

view  of  snow-topped  mountains,  a  lake  so  shallow  that 
at  times  their  loaded  canoes  scraped  on  the  glaciated 
rock  below  and  they  had  to  alter  their  course.  They 
camped  in  a  lurid  sunset;  the  night  was  warm  and 
mosquitoes  were  troublesome,  and  towards  morning 
came  a  thunderstorm  and  wind  and  rain. 

The  dawn  broke  upon  a  tearing  race  of  waves 
and  a  wild  drift  of  slanting  rain  sweeping  across  the 
lake  before  a  gale.  Marjorie  peered  out  at  this  as 
one  peers  out  under  the  edge  of  an  umbrella.  It  was 
manifestly  impossible  to  go  on,  and  they  did  nothing 
that  day  but  run  up  a  canvas  shelter  for  the  men  and 
shift  the  tent  behind  a  thicket  of  trees  out  of  the  full 
force  of  the  wind.  The  men  squatted  stoically,  and 
smoked  and  yarned.  Everything  got  coldly  wet,  and 
for  the  most  part  the  Traffords  sat  under  the  tent 
and  stared  blankly  at  this  summer  day  in  Labrador. 

"  Now,"  said  Trafford,  "  we  ought  to  begin  talk- 
ing." 

"  There's  nothing  much  to  do  else,"  said  Mar- 
jorie. 

"  Only  one  can't  begin,"  said  Trafford. 

He  was  silent  for  a  time.  "  We're  getting  out  of 
things,"  he  said.  .  .  . 

The  next  day  began  with  a  fine  drizzle  through 
which  the  sun  broke  suddenly  about  ten  o'clock.  They 
made  a  start  at  once,  and  got  a  good  dozen  miles  up 
the  lake  before  it  was  necessary  to  camp  again.  Both 
Marjorie  and  Trafford  felt  stiff  and  weary  and  un- 
comfortable all  day,  and  secretly  a  little  doubtful 
now  of  their  own  endurance.  They  camped  on  an 
island  on  turf  amidst  slippery  rocks,  and  the  next 
day  were  in  a  foaming  difficult  river  again,  with 
glittering  shallows  that  obliged  every  one  to  get  out 
at  times  to  wade  and  push.  All  through  the  after- 
noon they  were  greatly  beset  by  flies.  And  so  they 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  439 

worked  their  way  on  through  a  third  days'  journey 
towards  the  silent  inland  of  Labrador. 

Day  followed;  day  of  toilsome  and  often  tedious 
travel ;  they  fought  rapids,  they  waited  while  the  men 
stumbled  up  long  portages  under  vast  loads,  going 
and  returning,  they  camped  and  discussed  difficulties 
and  alternatives.  The  flies  sustained  an  unrelenting 
persecution,  until  faces  were  scarred  in  spite  of  veils 
and  smoke  fires,  until  wrists  and  necks  were  swollen 
and  the  blood  in  a  fever.  As  they  got  higher  and 
higher  towards  the  central  plateau,  the  mid-day  heat 
increased  and  the  nights  grew  colder,  until  they  would 
find  themselves  toiling,  wet  with  perspiration,  over 
rocks  that  sheltered  a  fringe  of  ice  beneath  their 
shadows.  The  first  fatigues  and  lassitudes,  the  shrink- 
ing from  cold  water,  the  ache  of  muscular  effort,  gave 
place  to  a  tougher  and  tougher  endurance;  skin 
seemed  to  have  lost  half  its  capacity  for  pain  without 
losing  a  tithe  of  its  discrimination,  muscles  attained 
a  steely  resilience ;  they  were  getting  seasoned.  "  I 
don't  feel  philosophical,"  said  Trafford,  "  but  I  feel 
well." 

"  We're  getting  out  of  things." 

"  Suppose  we  are  getting  out  of  our  problems ! 

99 

One  day  as  they  paddled  across  a  mile-long  pool, 
they  saw  three  bears  prowling  in  single  file  high  up  on 
the  hillside.  "  Look,"  said  the  man,  and  pointed  with 
his  paddle  at  the  big,  soft,  furry  black  shapes,  magni- 
fied and  startling  in  the  clear  air.  All  the  canoes 
rippled  to  a  stop,  the  men,  at  first  still,  whispered 
softly.  One  passed  a  gun  to  Trafford,  who  hesitated 
find  looked  at  Marjorie. 

The  air  of  tranquil  assurance  about  these  three 
huge  loafing  monsters  had  a  queer  effect  on  Mar- 
jorie's  mind.  They  made  her  feel  that  they  were  at 


440  MARRIAGE 

home  and  that  she  was  an  intruder.  She  had  never 
in  her  life  seen  any  big  wild  animals  except  in  a 
menagerie.  She  had  developed  a  sort  of  unconscious 
belief  that  all  big  wild  animals  were  in  menageries 
nowadays,  and  this  spectacle  of  beasts  entirely  at 
large  startled  her.  There  was  never  a  bar  between 
these  creatures,  she  felt,  and  her  sleeping  self.  They 
might,  she  thought,  do  any  desperate  thing  to  feeble 
men  and  women  who  came  their  way. 

"  Shall  I  take  a  shot?"  asked  Trafford. 

"  No,"  said  Marjorie,  pervaded  by  the  desire  for 
mutual  toleration.  "  Let  them  be." 

The  big  brutes  disappeared  in  a  gully,  reappeared, 
came  out  against  the  skyline  one  by  one  and  vanished. 

"  Too  long  a  shot,"  said  Trafford,  handing  back 
the  gun.  .  .  . 

Their  journey  lasted  altogether  a  month.  Never 
once  did  they  come  upon  any  human  being  save  them- 
selves, though  in  one  place  they  passed  the  poles — 
for  the  most  part  overthrown — of  an  old  Indian  en- 
campment. But  this  desolation  was  by  no  means 
lifeless.  They  saw  great  quantities  of  waterbirds, 
geese,  divers,  Arctic  partridge  and  the  like,  they  be- 
came familiar  with  the  banshee  cry  of  the  loon.  They 
lived  very  largely  on  geese  and  partridge.  Then  for 
a  time  about  a  string  of  lakes,  the  country  was  alive 
with  migrating  deer  going  south,  and  the  men  found 
traces  of  a  wolf.  They  killed  six  caribou,  and  stayed 
to  skin  and  cut  them  up  and  dry  the  meat  to  replace 
the  bacon  they  had  consumed,  caught,  fried  and  ate 
great  quantities  of  trout,  and  became  accustomed  to 
the  mysterious  dance  of  the  northern  lights  as  the 
sunset  afterglow  faded. 

Everywhere,  except  in  the  river  gorges,  the 
country  displayed  the  low  hummocky  lines  and  tarn- 
like  pools  of  intensely  glaciated  land;  everywhere  it 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  441 

was  carpeted  with  reindeer  moss  growing  upon  peat 
and  variegated  by  bushes  of  flowering,  sweet-smelling 
Labrador  tea.  In  places  this  was  starred  with  little 
harebells  and  diversified  by  tussocks  of  heather  and 
rough  grass,  and  over  the  rocks  trailed  delicate  dwarf 
shrubs  and  a  very  pretty  and  fragrant  pink-flowered 
plant  of  which  neither  she  nor  Trafford  knew  the 
name.  There  was  an  astonishing  amount  of  wild 
fruit,  raspberries,  cranberries,  and  a  white  kind  of 
strawberry  that  was  very  delightful.  The  weather, 
after  its  first  outbreak,  remained  brightly  serene.  .  . 
And  at  last  it  seemed  fit  to  Trafford  to  halt  and 
choose  his  winter  quarters.  He  chose  a  place  on  the 
side  of  a  low,  razor-hacked  rocky  mountain  ridge, 
about  fifty  feet  above  the  river — which  had  now 
dwindled  to  a  thirty-foot  stream.  His  site  was  near 
a  tributary  rivulet  that  gave  convenient  water,  in  a 
kind  of  lap  that  sheltered  between  two  rocky  knees, 
each  bearing  thickets  of  willow  and  balsam.  Not  a 
dozen  miles  away  from  them  now  they  reckoned  was 
the  Height  of  Land,  the  low  watershed  between  the 
waters  that  go  to  the  Atlantic  and  those  that  go  to 
Hudson's  Bay.  Close  beside  the  site  he  had  chosen 
a  shelf  of  rock  ran  out  and  gave  a  glimpse  up  the 
narrow  rocky  valley  of  the  Green  River's  upper 
waters  and  a  broad  prospect  of  hill  and  tarn  towards 
the  south-east.  North  and  north-east  of  them  the 
country  rose  to  a  line  of  low  crests,  with  here  and 
there  a  yellowing  patch  of  last  year's  snow,  and 
across  the  valley  were  slopes  covered  in  places  by 
woods  of  stunted  pine.  It  had  an  empty  spacious- 
ness of  effect ;  the  one  continually  living  thing  seemed 
to  be  the  Green  River,  hurrying  headlong,  noisily, 
perpetually,  in  an  eternal  flight  from  this  high  deso- 
lation. Birds  were  rare  here,  and  the  insects  that 
buzzed  and  shrilled  and  tormented  among  the  rocks 


442  MARRIAGE 

and  willows  in  the  gorge  came  but  sparingly  up  the 
slopes  to  them. 

"  Here  presently,"  said  Trafford,  "  we  shall  be  in 
peace." 

"  It  is  very  lonely,"  said  Mar  j  one. 

"  The  nearer  to  God." 

"  Think  !  Not  one  of  these  hills  has  ever  had  a 
name." 

"Well?" 

"  It  might  be  in  some  other  planet." 

"  Oh  !—  we'll  christen  them.  That  shall  be  Mar- 
jorie  Ridge,  and  that  Rag  Valley.  This  space  shall 
be  —  oh!  Bayswater!  Before  we've  done  with  it,  this 
place  and  every  feature  of  it  will  be  as  familiar  as 
Sussex  Square.  More  so,  —  for  half  the  houses  there 
would  be  stranger  to  us,  if  we  could  see  inside  them, 
than  anything  in  this  wilderness.  ...  As  familiar, 
say  —  as  your  drawing-room.  That's  better." 

Marjorie  made  no  answer,  but  her  eyes  went 
from  the  reindeer  moss  and  scrub  and  thickets  of  the 
foreground  to  the  low  rocky  ridges  that  bounded  the 
view  north  and  east  of  them.  The  scattered  bould- 
ers, the  tangles  of  wood,  the  barren  upper  slopes,  the 
dust-soiled  survivals  of  the  winter's  snowfall,  all  con- 
tributed to  an  effect  at  once  carelessly  desert  and 
hopelessly  untidy.  She  looked  westward,  and  her 
memory  was  full  of  interminable  streaming  rapids, 
wastes  of  icestriated  rocks,  tiresome  struggles 
through  woods  and  wild,  wide  stretches  of  tundura 
and  tarn,  trackless  and  treeless,  infinitely  desolate. 
It  seemed  toi  her  that  the  sea  coast  was  but  a  step 
from  London  and  ten  thousand  miles  away  from  her. 


The  men  had  engaged  to  build  the  framework  of 
hut  and  store  shed  before  returning,  and  to  this  under 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  443 

Trafford's  direction  they  now  set  themselves.  They 
were  all  half-breeds,  mingling  Indian  with  Scot- 
tish or  French  blood,  sober  and  experienced  men. 
Three  were  named  Mackenzie,  two  brothers  and  a 
cousin,  and  another,  Raymond  Noyes,  was  a  rela- 
tion and  acquaintance  of  that  George  Elson  who  was 
with  Wallace  and  Leonidas  Hubbard,  and  afterwards 
guided  Mrs.  Hubbard  in  her  crossing  of  Labrador. 
The  fifth  was  a  boy  of  eighteen  named  Lean.  They 
were  all  familiar  with  the  idea  of  summer  travel  in 
this  country ;  quite  a  number,  a  score  or  so  that  is  to 
say,  of  adventurous  people,  including  three  or  four 
women,  had  ventured  far  in  the  wake  of  the  Hubbards 
into  these  great  wildernesses  during  the  decade  that 
followed  that  first  tragic  experiment  in  which  Hub- 
bard died.  But  that  any  one  not  of  Indian  or  Es- 
quimaux blood  should  propose  to  face  out  the  Labra- 
dor winter  was  a  new  thing  to  them.  They  were  really 
very  sceptical  at  the  outset  whether  these  two  highly 
civilized-looking  people  would  ever  get  up  to  the 
Height  of  Land  at  all,  and  it  was  still  with  mani- 
fest incredulity  that  they  set  about  the  building  of 
the  hut  and  the  construction  of  the  sleeping  bunks 
for  which  they  had  brought  up  planking.  A  stream 
of  speculative  talk  had  flowed  along  beside  Marjorie 
and  Trafford  ever  since  they  had  entered  the  Green 
River;  and  it  didn't  so  much  come  to  an  end  as  get 
cut  off  at  last  by  the  necessity  of  their  departure. 

Noyes  would  stand,  holding  a  hammer  and  star- 
ing at  the  narrow  little  berth  he  was  fixing  together. 

"  You'll  not  sleep  in  this,"  he  said. 

"  I  will,"  replied  Marjorie. 

"  You'll  come  back  with  us." 

"  Not  me." 

"  There'll  be  wolves  come  and  howl.55 


444  MARRIAGE 

"  They'll  come  right  up  to  the  door  here.  Winter 
makes  'em  hid  jus  bold." 

Marjorie  shrugged  her  shoulders. 

"  It's  that  cold  I've  known  a  man  have  his  nose 
froze  while  he  lay  in  bed,"  said  Noyes. 

"Up  here?" 

"  Down  the  coast.  But  they  say  it's  'most  as  cold 
up  here.  Many's  the  man  it's  starved  and  froze."  . .  . 

He  and  his  companions  told  stories, — very  cir- 
cumstantial and  pitiful  stories,  of  Indian  disasters. 
They  were  all  tales  of  weariness  and  starvation,  of  the 
cessation  of  food,  because  the  fishing  gave  out,  be- 
cause the  caribou  did  not  migrate  by  the  customary 
route,  because  the  man  of  a  family  group  broke  his 
wrist,  and  then  of  the  start  of  all  or  some  of  the  party 
to  the  coast  to  get  help  and  provisions,  of  the  strain- 
ing, starving  fugitives  caught  by  blizzards,  losing 
the  track,  devouring  small  vermin  raw,  gnawing  their 
own  skin  garments  until  they  toiled  half -naked  in  the 
snow, — becoming  cannibals,  becoming  delirious,  lying 
Jown  to  die.  Once  there  was  an  epidemic  of  influenza, 
and  three  families  of  seven  and  twenty  people  just 
gave  up  and  starved  and  died  in  their  lodges,  and 
were  found,  still  partly  frozen,  a  patient,  pitiful  com- 
pany, by  trappers  in  the  spring.  .  .  . 

Such  they  said,  were  the  common  things  that 
happened  in  a  Labrador  winter.  Did  the  Traifords 
wish  to  run  such  risks? 

A  sort  of  propagandist  enthusiasm  grew  up  in 
the  men.  They  felt  it  incumbent  upon  them  to  per- 
suade the  Traffords  to  return.  They  reasoned  with 
them  rather*  as  one  does  with  wilful  children.  They 
tried  to  remind  them  of  the  delights  and  securities  of 
the  world  they  were  deserting.  Noyes  drew  fancy 
pictures  of  the  pleasures  of  London  by  way  of  con- 
trast to  the  bitter  days  before  them.  "  You've  got 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  445 

everything  there,  everything.  Suppose  you  feel  a 
bit  ill,  you  go  out,  and  every  block  there's  a  drug 
store  got  everything — all  the  new  rem'dies — p'raps 
twenty,  thirty  sorts  of  rem'dy.  Lit  up,  nice.  And 
chaps  in  collars — like  gentlemen.  Or  you  feel  a  bit 
dull,  and  you  go  into  the  streets  and  there's  people. 
Why !  when  I  was  in  New  York  I  used  to  spend  hours 
looking  at  the  people.  Hours !  And  everything  lit  up, 
too.  Sky  signs  !  Readin'  everywhere.  You  can  spend 
hours  and  hours  in  New  York " 

"  London,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Well,  London — just  going  about  and  reading 
the  things  they  stick  up.  Every  blamed  sort  of  thing. 
Or  you  say,  let's  go  somewhere.  Let's  go  out  and  be 
a  bit  lively.  See?  Up  you  get  on  a  car  and  there  you 
are!  Great  big  restaurants,  blazing  with  lights,  and 
you  can't  think  of  a  thing  td  eat  they  haven't  got. 
Waiters  all  round  you,  dressed  tremendous,  fair  ask- 
ing you  to  have  more.  Or  you  say,  let's  go  to  a 
theatre.  Very  likely,"  said  Noyes,  letting  his  imagi- 
nation soar,  "  you  order  up  one  of  these  automo- 
billies." 

"  By  telephone,"  helped  Trafford. 

"  By  telephone,"  confirmed  Noyes.  "  When  I 
was  in  New  York  there  was  a  telephone  in  each  room 
in  the  hotel.  Each  room.  I  didn't  use  it  ever,  except 
once  when  they  didn't  answer — but  there  it  was.  I 
know  about  telephones  all  right.  ..." 

Why  had  they  come  here  ?  None  of  the  men  were 
clear  about  that.  Marjorie  and  Trafford  would  over- 
hear them  discussing  this  question  at  their  fire  night 
after  night;  they  seemed  to  talk  of  nothing  else. 
They  indulged  in  the  boldest  hypotheses,  even  in  the 
theory  that  Trafford  knew  of  deposits  of  diamonds 
and  gold,  and  would  trust  no  one  but  his  wife  with 
the  secret.  They  seemed  also  attracted  by  the  idea 


446  MARRIAGE 

that  our  two  young  people  had  "  done  something.'* 
Lean,  with  memories  of  some  tattered  sixpenny  novel 
that  had  drifted  into  his  hands  from  England,  had 
even  some  notion  of  an  elopement,  of  a  pursuing  hus- 
band or  a  vindictive  wife.  He  was  young  and  roman- 
tic, but  it  seemed  incredible  he  should  suggest  that 
Marjorie  was  a  royal  princess.  Yet  there  were  mo- 
ments when  his  manner  betrayed  a  more  than  per- 
sonal respect.  .  .  . 

One  night  after  a  hard  day's  portage  Mackenzie 
was  inspired  by  a  brilliant  idea.  "  They  got  no 
children,"  he  said,  in  a  hoarse,  exceptionally  audible 
whisper.  "  It  worries  them.  Them  as  is  Catholics 
goes  pilgrimages,  but  these  ain't  Catholics.  See?" 

"  I  can't  stand  that,"  said  Marjorie.  "  It  touches 
my  pride.  I've  stood  a  good  deal.  Mr.  Mackenzie ! .  . . 
Mr.  .  .  .  Mackenzie." 

The  voice  at  the  men's  fire  stopped  and  a  black 
head  turned  around.  "  ,What  is  it,  Mrs.  Trafford?" 
asked  Mackenzie. 

She  held  up  four  fingers.    "  Four !"  she  said. 

"  Eh?" 

"  Three  sons  and  a  daughter,"  said  Marjorie. 

Mackenzie  did  not  take  it  in  until  his  younger 
brother  had  repeated  her  words. 

"  And  you've  come  from  them  to  this.  .  .  .  Sir, 
what  have  you  come  for?" 

"  We  want  to  be  here,"  shouted  Trafford  to  their 
listening  pause.  Their  silence  was  incredulous. 

"  We  wanted  to  be  alone  together.  There  was  too 
much — over  there — too  much  everything." 

Mackenzie,  in  silhouette  against  the  fire,  shook  his 
head,  entirely  dissatisfied.  He  could  not  understand 
how  there  could  be  too  much  of  anything.  It  was 
beyond  a  trapper's  philosophy. 


THE  PILGRIMAGE  447 

"  Come  back  with  us  sir,"  said  Noyes.  "  You'll 
weary  of  it.  ... " 

Noyes  clung  to  the  idea  of  dissuasion  to  the  end. 
"  I  don't  care  to  leave  ye,"  he  said,  and  made  a  sort 
of  byword  of  it  that  served  when  there  was  nothing 
else  to  say. 

He  made  it  almost  his  last  words.  He  turned  back 
for  another  handclasp  as  the  others  under  their  light 
returning  packs  were  filing  down  the  hill. 

"  I  don't  care  to  leave  ye,"  he  said. 

"  Good  luck !"  said  Trafford. 

"  You'll  need  it,"  said  Noyes,  and  looked  at  Mar- 
jorie  very  gravely  and  intently  before  he  turned 
about  and  marched  off  after  his  fellows.  .  .  . 

Both  Marjorie  and  Trafford  felt  a  queer  emotion, 
a  sense  of  loss  and  desertion,  a  swelling  in  the  throat, 
as  that  file  of  men  receded  over  the  rocky  slopes,  went 
down  into  a  dip,  reappeared  presently  small  and  re- 
mote cresting  another  spur,  going  on  towards  the 
little  wood  that  hid  the  head  of  the  rapids.  They 
halted  for  a  moment  on  the  edge  of  the  wood  and 
looked  back,  then  turned  again  one  by  one  and  melted 
stride  by  stride  into  the  trees.  Noyes  was  the  last  to 
go.  He  stood,  in  an  attitude  that  spoke  as  plainly 
as  words,  "  I  don't  care  to  leave  ye."  Something 
white  waved  and  flickered;  he  had  whipped  out  the 
letters  they  had  given  him  for  England,  and  he  was 
waving  them.  Then,  as  if  by  an  effort,  he  set  himself 
to  follow  the  others,  and  the  two  still  watchers  on  the 
height  above  saw  him  no  more. 


CHAPTER  THE  FOURTH 
LONELY  HUT 


MAEJORIE  and  Trafford  walked  slowly  back  to  the 
hut.  "  There  is  much  to  do  before  the  weather  breaks," 
he  said,  ending  a  thoughtful  silence.  "  Then  we  can 
sit  inside  there  and  talk  about  the  things  we  need  to 
talk  about." 

He  added  awkwardly :  "  Since  we  started,  there 
has  been  so  much  to  hold  the  attention.  I  remember 
a  mood — an  immense  despair.  I  feel  it's  still  some- 
where at  the  back  of  things,  waiting  to  be  dealt  with. 
It's  our  essential  fact.  But  meanwhile  we've  been 
busy,  looking  at  fresh  things." 

He  paused.  "  Now  it  will  be  different  per- 
haps. ..." 

For  nearly  four  weeks  indeed  they  were  occupied 
very  closely,  and  crept  into  their  bunks  at  night  as 
tired  as  wholesome  animals  who  drop  to  sleep.  At 
any  time  the  weather  might  break ;  already  there  had 
been  two  overcast  days  and  a  frowning  conference  of 
clouds  in  the  north.  When  at  last  storms  began  they 
knew  there  would  be  nothing  for  it  but  to  keep  in  the 
hut  until  the  world  froze  up. 

There  was  much  to  do  to  the  hut.  The  absence  of 
anything  but  stunted  and  impoverished  timber  and  the 
limitation  of  time,  had  forbidden  a  log  hut,  and  their 
home  was  really  only  a  double  framework,  rammed 
tight  between  inner  and  outer  frame  with  a  mixture 
of  earth  and  boughs  and  twigs  of  willow,  pine  and 
balsam.  The  floor  was  hammered  earth  carpeted  with 
balsam  twigs  and  a  caribou  skin.  Outside  and  within 

448 


LONELY  HUT  449 

wall  and  roof  were  faced  with  coarse  canvas — that 
was  Trafford's  idea — and  their  bunks  occupied  two 
sides  of  the  hut.  Heating  was  done  by  the  sheet-iron 
stove  they  had  brought  with  them,  and  the  smoke  was 
carried  out  to  the  roof  by  a  thin  sheet-iron  pipe 
which  had  come  up  outside  a  roll  of  canvas.  They 
had  made  the  roof  with  about  the  pitch  of  a  Swiss 
chalet,  and  it  was  covered  with  nailed  waterproof  can- 
vas, held  down  by  a  large  number  of  big  lumps  of 
stone.  Much  of  the  canvassing  still  remained  to  do 
when  the  men  went  down,  and  then  the  Traffords  used 
every  scrap  of  packing-paper  and  newspaper  that 
had  come  up  with  them  and  was  not  needed  for  lining 
the  bunks  in  covering  any  crack  or  join  in  the  can- 
vas wall. 

Two  decadent  luxuries,  a  rubber  bath  and  two 
rubber  hot-water  bottles,  hung  behind  the  door.  They 
were  almost  the  only  luxuries.  Kettles  and  pans  and 
some  provisions  stood  on  a  shelf  over  the  stove ;  there 
was  also  a  sort  of  recess  cupboard  in  the  opposite 
corner,  reserve  clothes  were  in  canvas  trunks  under 
the  bunks,  they  kept  their  immediate  supply  of  wood 
under  the  eaves  just  outside  the  door,  and  there  was  a 
big  can  of  water  between  stove  and  door.  When 
the  winter  came  they  would  have  to  bring  in  ice  from 
the  stream. 

This  was  their  home.  The  tent  that  had  sheltered 
Marjorie  on  the  way  up  was  erected  close  to  this  hut 
to  serve  as  a  rude  scullery  and  outhouse,  and  they 
also  made  a  long,  roughly  thatched  roof  with  a  can- 
vas cover,  supported  on  stakes,  to  shelter  the  rest  of 
the  stores.  The  stuff  in  tins  and  cases  and  jars  they 
left  on  the  ground  under  this;  the  rest — the  flour, 
candles,  bacon,  dried  caribou  beef,  and  so  forth,  they 
hung,  as  they  hoped,  out  of  the  reach  of  any  prowling 
beast.  And  finally  and  most  important  was  the  wood 


450  MARRIAGE 

pile.  This  they  accumulated  to  the  north  and  east 
of  the  hut,  and  all  day  long  with  a  sort  of  ant-like 
perseverance  Trafford  added  to  it  from  the  thickets 
below.  Once  or  twice,  however,  tempted  by  the  ap- 
pearance of  birds,  he  went  shooting,  and  one  day  he 
got  five  geese  that  they  spent  a  day  upon,  plucking, 
cleaning,  boiling  and  putting  up  in  all  their  store 
of  empty  cans,  letting  the  fat  float  and  solidify  on 
the  top  to  preserve  this  addition  to  their  provision 
until  the  advent  of  the  frost  rendered  all  other  pre- 
servatives unnecessary.  They  also  tried  to  catch 
trout  down  in  the  river  below,  but  though  they  saw 
many  fish  the  catch  was  less  than  a  dozen. 

It  was  a  discovery  to  both  of  them  to  find  how 
companionable  these  occupations  were,  how  much 
more  side  by  side  they  could  be  amateurishly  cleaning 
out  a  goose  and  disputing  about  its  cooking,  than 
they  had  ever  contrived  to  be  in  Sussex  Square. 

"  These  things  are  so  infernally  interesting,"  said 
Trafford,  surveying  the  row  of  miscellaneous  cans 
upon  the  stove  he  had  packed  with  disarticulated 
goose.  "  But  we  didn't  come  here  to  picnic.  All  this 
is  eating  us  up.  I  have  a  memory  of  some  immense 
tragic  purpose ' 

"  That  tin's  boiling!"  screamed  Marjorie  sharply. 

He  resumed  his  thread  after  an  active  interlude. 

"  We'll  keep  the  wolf  from  the  door,"  he  said. 

"  Don't  talk  of  wolves !"  said  Marjorie. 

"  It  is  only  when  men  have  driven  away  the  wolf 
from  the  door — oh!  altogether  away,  that  they  find 
despair  in  the  sky?  I  wonder — 

"What?"  asked  Marjorie  in  his  pause. 

"  I  wonder  if  there  is  nothing  really  in  life  but 
this,  the  food  hunt  and  the  love  hunt.  Is  life  just  all 
hunger  and  need,  and  are  we  left  with  nothing — 
nothing  at  all — when  these  things  are  done?  .  .  , 


^  LONELY  HUT  451 

e're  infernally  uncomfortable  here." 
"Oh,  nonsense!"  cried  Marjorie. 

"  Think  of  your  carpets  at  home  !  Think  of  the 
great,  warm,  beautiful  house  that  wasn't  big  enough  ! 
•  —  And  yet  here,  we're  happy." 

"We  are  happy,"  said  Marjorie.  struck  by  the 
thought.  "  Only  -  " 

"  Yes." 

"  I'm  afraid.  And  I  long  for  the  children.  And 
the  wind  nips" 

"  It  may  be  those  are  good  things  for  us.  No  ! 
This  is  just  a  lark  as  yet,  Marjorie.  It's  still  fresh 
and  full  of  distractions.  The  discomforts  are  amus- 
ing. Presently  we'll  get  used  to  it.  Then  we'll 
talk  out  —  what  we  have  to  talk  out.  ...  I  say, 
wouldn't  it  keep  and  improve  this  goose  of  ours  if 
we  put  in  a  little  brandy? 


The  weather  broke  at  last.  One  might  say  it 
smashed  itself  over  their  heads.  There  came  an  after- 
noon darkness  swift  and  sudden,  a  wild  gale  and  an 
icy  sleet  that  gave  place  in  the  night  to  snow,  so  that 
Trafford  looked  out  next  morning  to  see  a  maddening 
chaos  of  small  white  flakes,  incredibly  swift,  against 
something  that  was  neither  darkness  nor  light.  Even 
with  the  door  but  partly  ajar  a  cruelty  of  cold  put 
its  claw  within,  set  everything  that  was  moveable 
swaying  and  clattering,  and  made  Marjorie  hasten 
shuddering  to  heap  fresh  logs  upon  the  fire.  Once  or 
twice  Trafford  went  out  to  inspect  tent  and  roof  and 
store-shed,  several  times  wrapped  to  the  nose  he 
battled  his  way  for  fresh  wood,  and  for  the  rest  of 
the  blizzard  they  kept  to  the  hut.  It  was  slumberously 
stuffy,  but  comfortingly  full  of  flavours  of  tobacco 


452  MARRIAGE 

and  food.  There  were  two  days  of  intermission  and 
a  day  of  gusts  and  icy  sleet  again,  turning  with  one 
extraordinary  clap  of  thunder  to  a  wild  downpour  of 
dancing  lumps  of  ice,  and  then  a  night  when  it  seemed 
all  Labrador,  earth  and  sky  together,  was  in  hysteri- 
cal protest  against  inconceivable  wrongs. 

And  then  the  break  was  over;  the  annual  freez- 
ing-up  was  accomplished,  winter  had  established  it- 
self, the  snowfall  moderated  and  ceased,  and  an  ice- 
bound world  shone  white  and  sunlit  under  a  cloudless 
sky. 


Through  all  that  time  they  got  no  further  with  the 
great  discussion  for  which  they  had  faced  that  soli- 
tude. They  attempted  beginnings. 

"Where  had  we  got  to  when  we  left  England?" 
cried  Marjorie.  "  You  couldn't  work,  you  couldn't 
rest — you  hated!  our  life." 

"  Yes,  I  know.  I  had  a  violent  hatred  of  the 
lives  we  were  leading.  I  thought — we  had  to  get 
away.  To  think.  .  .  .  But  things  don't  leave  us 
alone  here." 

He  covered  his  face  with  his  hands. 

"  Why  did  we  come  here?"  he  asked. 

"  You  wanted — to  get  out  of  things." 

"  Yes.  But  with  you.  .  .  .  Have  we,  after  all, 
got  out  of  things  at  all?  I  said  coming  up,  perhaps 
we  were  leaving  our  own  problem  behind.  In  ex- 
change for  other  problems — old  problems  men  have 
hadj  before.  We've  got  nearer  necessity;  that's  all. 
Things  press  on  us  just  as  much.  There's  nothing 
more  fundamental  in  wild  nature,  nothing  profounder 
— only  something  earlier.  One  doesn't  get  out  of  life 
by  going  here  or  there,  ,  .  ,  But  I  wanted  to  get 


LONELY  HUT  453 

you  away — from  all  things  that  had  such  a  hold  on 
you.  .  .  . 

"  When  one  lies  awake  at  nights,  then  one  seems 
to  get  down  into  things.  ..." 

He  went  to  the  door,  opened  it,  and  stood  looking 
out.  Against  a  wan  daylight  the  snow  was  falling 
noiselessly  and  steadily. 

"  Everything  goes  on,"  he  said.  ..."  Relent- 
lessly. ..." 


That  was  as  far  as  they  had  got  when  the  storms 
ceased  and  they  came  out  again  into  an  air  inexpres- 
sibly fresh  and  sharp  and  sweet,  and  into  a  world 
blindingly  clean  and  golden  white  under  the  rays  of 
the  morning  sun. 

"  We  will  build  a  fire  out  here,"  said  Marjorie; 
"  make  a  great  pile.  There  is  no  reason  at  all  why 
we  shouldn't  live  outside  all  through  the  day  in  such 
weather  as  this." 

§  5 

One  morning  Trafford  found  the  footmarks  of 
some  catlike  creature  in  the  snow  near  the  bushes 
where  he  was  accustomed  to  get  firewood;  they  led 
away  very  plainly  up  the  hill,  and  after  breakfast  he 
took  his  knife  and  rifle  and  snowshoes  and  went  after 
the  lynx — for  that  he  decided  the  animal  must 
be.  There  was  no  urgent  reason  why  he  should  want 
to  kill  a  lynx,  unless  perhaps  that  killing  it  mact-e  the 
store  shed  a  trifle  safer ;  but  it  was  th.e  first  trail  of 
any  living  thing  for  many  days ;  it  premised  excite- 
ment; some  primordial  instinct  perhaps,  urged  him. 

The  morning  was  a  little  overcast,  and  very  cold 
between  the  gleams  of  wintry  sunshine.  "  Good-bye, 
dear  wife!"  he  said,  and  then  as  she  remembered  af- 


4,54  MARRIAGE 

terwards  came  back  a  dozen  yards  to  kiss  her.  "  I'll 
not  be  long,"  he  said.  "  The  beast's  prowling,  and 
if  it  doesn't  get  wind  of  me  I  ought  to  find  it  in  an 
hour."  He  hesitated  for  a  moment.  "  I'll  not  be 
long,"  he  repeated,  and  she  had  an  instant's  wonder 
whether  he  hid  from  her  the  same  dread  of  loneliness 
that  she  concealed.  Or  perhaps  he  only  knew  her 
secret.  Up  among  the  tumbled  rocks  he  turned,  and 
she  was  still  watching  him.  "  Good-bye !"  he  cried 
and  waved,  and  the  willow  thickets  closed  about  him. 
She  forced  herself  to  the  petty  duties  of  the  day, 
made  up  the  fire  from  the  pile  he  had  left  for  her, 
set  water  to  boil,  put  the  hut  in  order,  brought  out 
sheets  and  blankets  to  air  and  set  herself  to  wash  up. 
She  wished  she  had  been  able  to  go  with  him.  The 
sky  cleared  presently,  and  the  low  December  sun  lit 
all  the  world  about  her,  but  it  left  her  spirit  desolate. 
She  did  not  expect  him  to  return  until  mid-day, 
and  she  sat  herself  down;  on  a  log  before  the  fire  to 
darn  a  pair  of  socks  as  well  as  she  could.  For  a  time 
this  unusual  occupation  held  her  attention  and  then 
her  hands  became  slow  and  at  last  inactive,  and  she 
fell  into  reverie.  She  thought  at  first  of  her  chil- 
dren and  what  they  might  be  doing,  in  England 
across  there  to  the  east  it  would  be  about  five  hours 
later,  four  o'clock  in  the  afternoon,  and  the  children 
would  be  coming  home  through  the  warm  muggy  Lon- 
don sunshine  with  Fraulein  Otto  to  tea.  She  wondered 
if  thet  had  the  proper  clothes,  if  they  were  well; 
were  they  perhaps  quarrelling  or  being  naughty  or 
skylai'king  gaily  across  the  Park.  Of  course  Frau- 
lein Ot£o  was  all  right,  quite  to  be  trusted,  absolutely 
trustworthy,  And  their  grandmother  would  watch  for 
a  flushed  face  or  an  irrational  petulance  or  any  of 
the  little  signs  that  herald  trouble  with  more  than  a 
mother's  instinctive  alertness.  No  need  to  worry 


LONELY  HUT  455 

about  the  children,  no  need  whatever.  .  .  .  The 
world  of  London  opened  out  behind  these  thoughts; 
it  was  so  queer  to  think  that  she  was  in  almost  the 
same  latitude  as  the  busy  bright  traffic  of  the  autumn 
season  in  Kensington  Gore;  that  away  there  in  ten 
thousand  cleverly  furnished  drawing-rooms  the  ring- 
ing tea  things  were  being  set  out  for  the  rustling  ad- 
vent of  smart  callers  and  the  quick  leaping  gossip. 
And  there  would  be  all  sorts  of  cakes  and  little  things ; 
for  a  while  her  mind  ran  on  cakes  and  little  things, 
and  she  thought  in  particular  whether  it  wasn't  time 
to  begin  cooking.  .  .  .  Not  yet.  What  was  it  she 
had  been  thinking  about?  Ah!  the  Solomonsons  and 
the  Capeses  and  the  Bernards  and  the  Carmels  and 
the  Lees.  Would  they  talk  of  her  and  Trafford?  It 
would  be  strange  to  go  back  to  it  all.  Would  they  go 
back  to  it  all?  She  found  herself  thinking  intently 
of  Trafford. 

What  a  fine  human  being  he  was !  And  how 
touchingly  human!  The  thoughts  of  his  moments  of 
irritation,  his  baffled  silences,  filled  her  with  a  wild 
passion  of  tenderness.  She  had  disappointed  him; 
all  that  life  failed  to  satisfy  him.  Dear  master  of  her 
life !  what  was  it  he  needed  ?  She  too  wasn't  satisfied 
with  life,  but  while  she  had  been  able  to  assuage  herself 
with  a  perpetual  series  of  petty  excitements,  theatres, 
new  books  and  new  people,  meetings,  movements,  din- 
ners, shows,  he  had  grown  to  an  immense  discontent. 
He  had  most  of  the  things  men  sought,  wealth,  re- 
spect, love,  children.  ...  So  many  men  might 
have  blunted  their  heart-ache  with — adventures. 
There  were  pretty  women,  clever  women,  unoccupied 
women.  She  felt  she  wouldn't  have  minded — much — 
if  it  made  him  happy.  ...  It  was  so  wonderful  he 
loved  her  still.  .  .  .  It  wasn't  that  he  lacked  occu- 
pation ;  on  the  whole  he  overworked.  His  business  in- 


456  MARRIAGE 

terests  were  big  and  wide.  Ought  he  to  go  into  poli- 
tics? Why  was  it  that  the  researches  that  had  held 
him  once,  could  hold  him  now  no  more?  That  was 
the  real  pity  of  it.  Was  she  to  blame  for  that  ?  She 
couldn't  state  a  case  against  herself,  and  yet  she  felt 
she  was  to  blame.  She  had  taken  him  away  from 
those  things,  forced  him  to  make  money.  .  .  . 

She  sat  chin  on  hand  staring  into  the  fire,  the 
sock  forgotten  on  her  knee. 

She  could  not  weigh  justice  between  herself  and 
him.  If  he  was  unhappy  it  was  her  fault.  She  knew 
that  with  a  woman's  irrational  simplicity  of  convic- 
tion ;  if  he  was  unhappy  it  was  no  excuse  that  she 
had  not  known,  had  been  misled,  had  a  right  to  her 
own  instincts  and  purposes.  She  had  got  to  make 
him  happy.  But  what  was  she  to  do,  what  was  there 
for  her  to  do  ?  .  .  . 

Only  he  could  work  out  his  own  salvation,  and 
until  he  had  light,  all  she  could  do  was  to  stand  by 
him,  help  him,  cease  to  irritate  him,  watch,  wait. 
Anyhow  she  could  at  least  mend  his  socks  as  well  as 
possible,  so  that  the  threads  would  not  chafe  him.  .  .  . 

She  flashed  to  her  feet.     What  was  that? 

It  seemed  to  her  she  had  heard  the  sound  of  a 
shot,  and  a  quick  brief  wake  of  echoes.  She  looked 
across  the  icy  waste  of  the  river,  and  then  up  the 
tangled  slopes  of  the  mountain.  Her  heart  was  beat- 
ing very  fast.  It  must  have  been  up  there,  and  no 
doubt  he  had  killed  his  beast.  Some  shadow  of  doubt 
she  would  not  admit  crossed  that  obvious  suggestion. 

This  wilderness  was  making  her  as  nervously  re- 
sponsive as  a  creature  of  the  wild. 

Came  a  second  shot ;  this  time  there  was  no  doubt 
of  it.  Then  the  desolate  silence  closed  about  her 
again. 


LONELY  HUT  457 

She  stood  for  a  long  time  staring  at  the  shrubby 
slopes  that  rose  to  the  barren  rock  wilderness  of  the 
purple  mountain  crest.  She  sighed  deeply  at  last,  and 
set  herself  to  make  up  the  fire  and  prepare  for  the 
mid-day  meal.  Once  far  away  across  the  river  she 
heard  the  howl  of  a  wolf. 

Time  seemed  to  pass  very  slowly  that  day.  She 
found  herself  going  repeatedly  to  the  space  between 
the  day  tent  and  the  sleeping  hut  from  which  she 
could  see  the  stunted  wood  that  had  swallowed  him 
up,  and  after  what  seemed  a  long  hour  her  watch 
told  her  it  was  still  only  half-past  twelve.  And  the 
fourth  or  fifth  time  that  she  went  to  look  out  she  was 
set  atremble  again  by  the  sound  of  a  third  shot.  And 
then  at  regular  intervals  out  of  that  distant  brown 
purple  jumble  of  thickets  against  the  snow  came  two 
more  shots.  "  Something  has  happened,"  she  said, 
"  something  has  happened,"  and  stood  rigid.  Then 
she  became  active,  seized  the  rifle  that  was  always  at 
hand  when  she  was  alone,  fired  into  the  sky  and  stood 
listening. 

Prompt  came  an  answering  shot. 

"  He  wants  me,"  said  Marjorie.  "  Something 

Perhaps  he  has  killed  something  too  big  to  bring!" 

She  was  for  starting  at  once,  and  then  remembered 
this  was  not  the  way  of  the  wilderness. 

She  thought  and  moved  very  rapidly.  Her  mind 
catalogued  possible  requirements,  rifle,  hunting  knife, 
the  oilskin  bag  with  matches,  and  some  chunks  of  dry 
paper,  the  rucks ac — and  he  would  be  hungry.  She 
took  a  saucepan  and  a  huge  chunk  of  cheese  and 
biscuit.  Then  a  brandy  flask  is  sometimes  handy — 
one  never  knows.  Though  nothing  was  wrong,  of 
course.  Needles  and  stout  thread,  and  some  cord. 
Snowshoes.  A  waterproof  cloak  could  be  easily  car- 
ried. Her  light  hatchet  for  wood.  She  cast  about 


458  MARRIAGE 

to  see  if  there  was  anything  else.  She  had  almost 
forgotten  cartridges — and  a  revolver.  Nothing  more. 
She  kicked  a  stray  brand  or  so  into  the  fire,  put  on 
some  more  wood,  damped  the  fire  with  an  armful  of 
snow  to  make  it  last  longer,  and  set  out  towards  the 
willows  into  which  he  had  vanished. 

There  was  a  rustling  and  snapping  of  branches 
as  she  pushed  her  way  through  the  bushes,  a  little 
stir  that  died  insensibly  into  quiet  again ;  and  then  the 
camping  place  became  very  still.  .  .  . 

Scarcely  a  sound  occurred,  except  for  the  little 
shuddering  and  stirring  of  the  fire,  and  the  reluctant, 
infrequent  drip  from  the  icicles  along  the  sunny  edge 
of  the  log  hut  roof.  About  one  o'clock  the  amber 
sunshine  faded  out  altogether,  a  veil  of  clouds  thick- 
ened and  became  greyly  ominous,  and  a  little  after 
two  the  first  flakes  of  a  snowstorm  fell  hissing  into 
the  fire.  A  wind  rose  and  drove  the  multiplying  snow- 
flakes  in  whirls  and  eddies  before  it.  The  icicles 
ceased  to  drip,  but  one  or  two  broke  and  fell  with  a 
weak  tinkling.  A  deep  soughing,  a  shuddering  groan- 
ing of  trees  and  shrubs,  came  ever  and  again  out  of 
the  ravine,  and  the  powdery  snow  blew  like  puffs  of 
smoke  from  the  branches. 

By  four  the  fire  was  out,  and  the  snow  was  piling 
high  in  the  darkling  twilight  against  tent  and  hut. . .  . 

§e 

Trafford's  trail  led  Marjorie  through  the  thicket 
of  dwarf  willows  and  down  to  the  gully  of  the  rivulet 
which  they  had  called  Marjorie  Trickle;  it  had  long 
since  become  a  trough  of  snow-covered  rotten  ice ;  the 
trail  crossed  this  and,  turning  sharply  uphill,  went 
on  until  it  was  clear  of  shrubs  and  trees,  and  in  the 
windy  open  of  the  upper  slopes  it  crossed  a  ridge  and 


LONELY  HUT  459 

came  over  the  lip  of  a  large  desolate  valley  with  slopes 
of  ice  and  icy  snow.  Here  she  spent  some  time  in 
following  his  loops  back  on  the  homeward  trail  be- 
fore she  saw  what  was  manifestly  the  final  trail  run- 
ning far  away  out  across  the  snow,  with  the  spoor  of 
the  lynx,  a  lightly-dotted  line,  to  the  right  of  it.  She 
followed  this  suggestion  of  the  trail,  put  on  her  snow- 
shoes,  and  shuffled  her  way  across  this  valley,  which 
opened  as  she  proceeded.  She  hoped  that  over  the 
ridge  she  would  find  Trafford,  and  scanned  the  sky 
for  the  faintest  discolouration  of  a  fire,  but  there  was 
none.  That  seemed  odd  to  her,  but  the  wind  was  in 
her  face,  and  perhaps  it  beat  the  smoke  down.  Then 
as  her  eyes  scanned  the  hummocky  ridge  ahead,  she 
saw  something,  something  very  intent  and  still,  that 
brought  her  heart  into  her  mouth.  It  was  a  big,  grey 
wolf,  standing  with  back  haunched  and  head  down, 
watching  and  winding  something  beyond  there,  out 
of  sight. 

Marjorie  had  an  instinctive  fear  of  wild  animals, 
and  it  still  seemed  dreadful  to  her  that  they  should  go 
at  large,  uncaged.  She  suddenly  wanted  Trafford 
violently,  wanted  him  by  her  side.  Also  she  thought 
of  leaving  the  trail,  going  back  to  the  bushes.  She 
had  to  take  herself  in  hand.  In  the  wastes  one  did 
not  fear  wild  beasts.  One  had  no  fear  of  them.  But 
why  not  fire  a  shot  to  let  him  know  she  was  near? 

The  beast  flashed  round  with  an  animal's  instan- 
taneous change  of  pose,  and  looked  at  her.  For  a 
couple  of  seconds,  perhaps,  woman  and  brute  re- 
garded one  another  across  a  quarter  of  a  mile  of 
snowy  desolation. 

Suppose  it  came  towards  her! 

She  would  fire — and  she  would  fire  at  it.  She 
made  a  guess  at  the  range  and  aimed  very  carefully. 
She  saw  the  snow  fly  two  yards  ahead  of  the  grisly 


460  MARRIAGE 

shape,  and  then  in  an  instant  it  had  vanished  over  the 
crest. 

She  reloaded,  and  stood  for  a  moment  waiting  for 
Traif ord's  answer.  No  answer  came.  "  Queer !"  she 
whispered,  "  queer !" — and  suddenly  such  a  horror  of 
anticipation  assailed  her  that  she  started  running  and 
floundering  through  the  snow  to  escape  it.  Twice  she 
called  his  name,  and  once  she  just  stopped  herself 
from  firing  a  shot. 

Over  the  ridge  she  would  find  him.  Surely  she 
would  find  him  over  the  ridge. 

She  found  herself  among  rocks,  and  there  was  a 
beaten  and  trampled  place  where  Trafford  must  have 
waited  and  crouched.  Then  on  and  down  a  slope  of 
tumbled  boulders.  There  came  a  patch  where  he 
had  either  thrown  himself  down  or  fallen. 

It  seemed  to  her  he  must  have  been  running 

Suddenly,  a  hundred  feet  or  so  away,  she  saw  a 
patch  of  violently  disturbed  snow — snow  stained  a 
dreadful  colour,  a  snow  of  scarlet  crystals!  Three 
strides  and  Trafford  was  in  sight. 

She  had  a  swift  conviction  he  was  dead.  He  was 
lying  in  a  crumpled  attitude  on  a  patch  of  snow 
between  convergent  rocks,  and  the  lynx,  a  mass  of 
blood  smeared  silvery  fur,  was  in  some  way  mixed  up 
with  him.  She  saw  as  she  came  nearer  that  the  snow 
was  disturbed  round  about  them,  and  discoloured 
copiously,  yellow  widely,  and  in  places  bright  red, 
with  congealed  and  frozen  blood.  She  felt  no  fear 
now,  and  no  emotion ;  all  her  mind  was  engaged  with 
the  clear,  bleak  perception  of  the  fact  before  her. 
She  did  not  care  to  call  to  him  again.  His  head  was 
hidden  by  the  lynx's  body,  it  was  as  if  he  was  burrow- 
ing underneath  the  creature;  his  legs  were  twisted 
about  each  other  in  a  queer,  unnatural  attitude. 

Then,  as  she  dropped  off  a  boulder,  and  came 
nearer,  Trafford  moved.  A  hand  came  out  and 


LONELY  HUT  461 

gripped  the  rifle  beside  him;  he  suddenly  lifted  a 
dreadful  face,  horribly  scarred  and  torn,  and  crim- 
son with  frozen  blood ;  he  pushed  the  grey  beast  aside, 
rose  on  an  elbow,  wiped  his  sleeve  across  his  eyes, 
stared  at  her,  grunted,  and  flopped  forward.  He 
had  fainted. 

She  was  now  as  clear-minded  and  as  self-possessed 
as  a  woman  in  a  shop.  In  another  moment  she  was 
kneeling  by  his  side.  She  saw,  by  the  position  of  his 
knife  and  the  huge  rip  in  the  beast's  body,  that  he 
had  stabbed  the  lynx  to  death  as  it  clawed  his  head; 
he  must  have  shot  and  wounded  it  and  then  fallen 
upon  it.  His  knitted  cap  was  torn  to  ribbons,  and 
hung  upon  his  neck.  Also  his  leg  was  manifestly 
injured;  how,  she  could  not  tell.  It  was  chiefly  evi- 
dent he  must  freeze  if  he  lay  here.  It  seemed  to  her 
that  perhaps  he  had  pulled  the  dead  brute  over  him 
to  protect  his  torn  skin  from  the  extremity  of  cold. 
The  lynx  was  already  rigid,  its  clumsy  paws  asprawl 
— the  torn  skin  and  clot  upon  Trafford's  face  was 
stiff  as  she  put  her  hands  about  his  head  to  raise 
him.  She  turned  him  over  on  his  back — how  heavy 
he  seemed! — and  forced  brandy  between  his  teeth. 
Then,  after  a  moment's  hesitation,  she  poured  a  little 
brandy  on  his  wounds. 

She  glanced  at  his  leg,  which  was  surely  broken, 
and  back  at  his  face.  Then  she  gave  him  more  brandy 
and  his  eyelids  flickered.  He  moved  his  hand  weakly. 
"  The  blood,"  he  said,  "  kept  getting  in  my  eyes." 

She  gave  him  brandy!  once  again,  wriped  his  face 
and  glanced  at  his  leg.  Something  ought  to  be  done 
to  that  she  thought.  But  things  must  be  done  in 
order. 

She  stared  up  at  the  darkling  sky  with  its  grey 
promise  of  snow,  and  down  the  slopes  of  the  moun- 
tain. Clearly  they  must)  stay  the  night  here.  They 


462  MARRIAGE 

were  too  high  for  wood  among  these  rocks,  but  three 
or  four  hundred  yards  below  there  were  a  number  of 
dwarfed  fir  trees.  She  had  brought  an  axe,  so  that 
a  fire  was  possible.  Should  she  go  back  to  camp  and 
get  the  tent? 

Trafford  was  trying  to  speak  again.  "  I  got " 

he  said. 

"Yes?" 

"  Got  my  leg  in  that  crack.  Damn — damned 
nuisance." 

Was  he  able  to  advise  her?  She  looked  at  him, 
and  then  perceived  she  must  bind  up  his  head  and 
face.  She  knelt  behind  him,  and  raised  his  head  on 
her  knee.  She  had  a  thick  silk  neck  muffler,  and  this 
she  supplemented  by  a  band  she  cut  and  tore  from 
her  inner  vest.  She  bound  this,  still  warm  from  her 
body,  about  him,  wrapped  her  cloak  round  him.  The 
next  thing  was  a  fire.  Five  yards  away,  perhaps,  a 
great  mass  of  purple  gabbro  hung  over  a  patch  of 
nearly  snowless  moss.  A  hummock  to  the  westward 
offered  shelter  from  the  weakly  bitter  wind,  the  icy 
draught,  that  was  soughing  down  the  valley.  Al- 
ways in  Labrador,  if  you  can,  you  camp  against  a 
rock  surface;  it  shelters  you  from  the  wind,  reflects 
your  fire,  guards  your  back. 

"Rag!"  she  said. 

"  Rotten  hole,"  said  Trafford. 

"  What?"  she  cried  sharply. 

"  Got  you  in  a  rotten  hole,"  he  said.   "  Eh?" 

"  Listen,"  she  said,  and  shook  his  shoulder. 
"  Look !  I  want  to  get  you  up  against  that  rock." 

"  Won't  make  much  difference,"  said  Trafford, 
and  opened  his  eyes.  "  Where?"  he  asked. 

"  There." 

He  remained  quite  quiet  for  a  second  perhaps. 
"  Listen  to  me,"  he  said.  "  Go  back  to  camp." 


LONELY  HUT  463 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"  Go  back  to  camp.  Make  a  pack  of  all  the 
strongest  food — strenthin' — strengthrin'  food — you 
know?"  He  seemed  troubled  to  express  himself. 

"  Yes,"  she  said. 

"  Down  the  river.  Down — down.  Till  you  meet 
help." 

"  Leave  you  ?" 

He  nodded  his  head  and  winced. 

"  You're  always  plucky,"  he  said.  "  Look  facts  in 
the  face.  Kiddies.  Thought  it  over  while  you  were 
coming."  A  tear  oozed  from  his  eye.  "  Not  be  a 
fool,  Madge.  Kiss  me  good-bye.  Not  be  a  fool.  I'm 
done.  Kids." 

She  stared  at  him  and  her  spirit  was  a  luminous 
mist  of  tears.  "  You  old  coward,"  she  said  in  his  ear, 
and  kissed  the  little  patch  of  rough  and  bloody  cheek 
beneath  his  eye.  Then  she  knelt  up  beside  him. 
"  I'm  boss  now,  old  man,"  she  said.  "  I  want  to  get 
you  to  that  place  there  under  the  rock.  If  I  drag, 
can  you  help?" 

He  answered  obstinately :   "  You'd  better  go." 

"  I'll  make  you  comfortable  first,"  she  answered, 
"  anyhow." 

He  made  an  enormous  effort,  and  then  with  her 
quick  help  and  with  his  back  to  her  knee,  had  raised 
himself  on  his  elbows. 

"  And  afterwards  ?"  he  asked. 

"  Build  a  fire." 

"Wood?" 

"  Down  there." 

"  Two  bits  of  wood  tied  on  my  leg — splints.  Then 
I  can  drag  myself.  See?  Like  a  blessed  old  walrus." 

He  smiled,  and  she  kissed  his  bandaged  face  again. 

"  Else  it  hurts,"  he  apologized,  "  more  than  I  can 
stand." 


464  MARRIAGE 

She  stood  up  again,  thought,  put  his  rifle  and 
knife  to  his  hand  for  fear  of  that  lurking  wolf,  aban- 
doning her  own  rifle  with  an  effort,  and  went  striding 
and  leaping  from  rock  to  rock  towards  the  trees  be- 
low. She  made  the  chips  fly,  and  was  presently  towing 
three  venerable  pine  dwarfs,  bumping  over  rock  and 
crevice,  back  to  Trafford.  She  flung  them  down, 
stood  for  a  moment  bright  and  breathless,  then  set 
herself  to  hack  off  the  splints  he  needed  from  the 
biggest  stem.  "Now,"  she  said,  coming  to  him. 

"  A  fool,"  he  remarked,  "  would  have  made  the 
splints  down  there.  You're — good,  Marjorie." 

She  lugged  his  leg  out  straight,  put  it  into  the 
natural  and  least  painful  pose,  padded  it  with  moss 
and  her  torn  handkerchief,  and  bound  it  up.  As  she 
did  so  a  handful  of  snowflakes  came  whirling  about 
them.  She  was  now  braced  up  to  every  possibility. 
"  It  never  rains,"  she  said  grimly,  "  but  it  pours," 
and  went  on  with  her  bone-setting.  He  was  badly 
weakened  by  pain  and  shock,  and  once  he  swore  at 
her  sharply.  "Sorry,"  he  said. 

She  rolled  him  over  on  his  chest,  and  left  him  to 
struggle  to  the  shelter  of  the  rock  while  she  went  for 
more  wood. 

The  sky  alarmed  her.  The  mountains  up  the 
valley  were  already  hidden  by  driven  rags  of  slaty 
snowstorms.  This  time  she  found  a  longer  but  easier 
path  for  dragging  her  boughs  and  trees;  she  deter- 
mined she  would  not  start  the  fire  until  nightfall,  nor 
waste  any  time  in  preparing  food  until  then.  There 
were  dead  boughs  for  kindling — more  than  enough. 
It  was  snowing  quite  fast  by  the  time  she  got  up  to 
him  with  her  second  load,  and  a  premature  twilight 
already  obscured  and  exaggerated  the  rocks  and 
mounds  about  her.  She  gave  some  of  her  cheese  to 
Trafford,  and  gnawed  some  herself  on  her  way  down 


LONELY  HUT  465 

to  the  wood  again.  She  regretted  that  she  had 
brought  neither  candles  nor  lantern,  because  then  she 
might  have  kept  on  until  the  cold  of  night  stopped 
her,  and  she  reproached  herself  bitterly  because  she 
had  brought  no  tea.  She  could  forgive  herself  the 
lantern,  she  had  never  expected  to  be  out  after  dark, 
but  the  tea  was  inexcusable.  She  muttered  self-re- 
proaches while  she  worked  like  two  men  among  the 
trees,  panting  puffs  of  mist  that  froze  upon  her  lips 
and  iced  the  knitted  wool  that  covered  her  chin.  Why 
don't  they  teach  a  girl  to  handle  an  axe?  .  .  . 

When  at  last  the  wolfish  cold  of  the  Labrador 
night  had  come,  it  found  Trafford  and  Marjorie 
seated  almost  warmly  on  a  bed  of  pine  boughs  between 
the  sheltering  dark  rock  behind  and  a  big  but  well 
husbanded  fire  in  front,  drinking  a  queer-tasting  but 
not  unsavory  soup  of  lynx-flesh,  that  she  had  forti- 
fied with  the  remainder  of  the  brandy.  Then  they 
tried  roast  lynx  and  ate  a  little,  and  finished  with 
some  scraps  of  cheese  and  deep  draughts  of  hot  water. 
Then — oh  Tyburnia  and  Chelsea  and  all  that  is  be- 
coming!— they  smoked  Trafford's  pipe  for  alternate 
minutes,  and  Marjorie  found  great  comfort  in  it. 

The  snowstorm  poured  incessantly  out  of  the 
darkness  to  become  flakes  of  burning  fire  in  the  light 
of  the  flames,  flakes  that  vanished  magically,  but  it 
only  reached  them  and  wetted  them  in  occasional 
gusts.  What  did  it  matter  for  the  moment  if  the  dim 
snow-heaps  rose  and  rose  about  them?  A  glorious 
fatigue,  an  immense  self-satisfaction  possessed  Mar- 
jorie; she  felt  that  they  had  both  done  well. 

"  I  am  not  afraid  of  to-morrow  now,"  she  said  at 
last — a  thought  matured.  "No!" 

Trafford  had  the  pipe  and  did  not  speak  for  a 
moment.  "  Nor  I,"  he  said  at  last.  "  Very  likely 
we'll  get  through  with  it."  He  added  after  a  pause : 


466  MARRIAGE 

"  I  thought  I  was  done  for.  A  man — loses  heart. 
After  a  loss  of  blood." 

"The  leg's  better?" 

"  Hot  as  fire."  His  humour  hadn't  left  him.  "  It's 
a  treat,"  he  said.  "  The  hottest  thing  in  Labrador." 

"  I've  been  a  good  squaw  this  time,  old  man?"  she 
asked  suddenly. 

He  seemed  not  to  hear  her ;  then  his  lips  twitched 
and  he  made  a  feeble  movement  for  her  hand.  "  I 
cursed  you,''  he  said.  .  .  . 

She  slept,  but  on  a  spring  as  it  were,  lest  the  fire 
should  fall.  She  replenished  it  with  boughs,  tucked  in 
the  half-burnt  logs,  and  went  to  sleep  again.  Then  it 
seemed  to  her  that  some  invisible  hand  was  pouring  a 
thin  spirit  on  the  flames  that  made  them  leap  and 
crackle  and  spread  north  and  south  until  they  filled 
the  heavens.  Her  eyes  were  open  and  the  snowstorm 
overpast,  leaving  the  sky  clear,  and  all  the  westward 
heaven  alight  with  the  trailing,  crackling,  leaping 
curtains  of  the  Aurora,  brighter  than  she  had  ever 
seen  them  before.  Quite  clearly  visible  beyond  the 
smoulder  of  the  fire,  a  wintry  waste  of  rock  and  snow, 
boulder  beyond  boulder,  passed  into  a  dun  obscurity. 
The  mountain  to  the  right  of  them  lay  long  and  white 
and  stiff,  a  shrouded  death.  All  earth  was  dead  and 
waste  and  nothing,  and  the  sky  alive  and  coldly  mar- 
vellous, signalling  and  astir.  She  watched  the  chang- 
ing, shifting  colours,  and  they  made  her  think  of  the 
gathering  banners  of  inhuman  hosts,  the  stir  and  mar- 
shalling of  icy  giants  for  ends  stupendous  and  indif- 
ferent to  all  the  trivial  impertinence  of  man's  exist- 
ence  

That  night  the  whole  world  of  man  seemed  small 
and  shallow  and  insecure  to  her,  beyond  comparison. 
One  came,  she  thought,  but  just  a  little  way  out  of  its 
warm  and  sociable  cities  hither,  and  found  this  home- 


LONELY  HUT  467 

less  wilderness ;  one  pricked  the  thin  appearances  of 
life  with  microscope  or  telescope  and  came  to  an  equal 
strangeness.  All  the  pride  and  hope  of  human  life 
goes  to  and  fro  in  a  little  shell  of  air  between  this 
ancient  globe  of  rusty  nickel-steel  and  the  void  of 
space;  faint  specks  we  are  within  a  film;  we  quiver 
between  the  atom  and  the  infinite,  being  hardly  more 
substantial  than  the  glow  within  an  oily  skin  that 
drifts  upon  the  water.  The  wonder  and  the  riddle  of 
it !  Here  she  and  Trafford  were !  Phantasmal  shapes 
of  unsubstantial  fluid  thinly  skinned  against  evapora- 
tion and  wrapped  about  with  woven  wool  and  the 
skins  of  beasts,  that  yet  reflected  and  perceived,  suf- 
fered and  sought  to  understand;  that  held  a  million 
memories,  framed  thoughts  that  plumbed  the  deeps  of 
space  and  time, — and  another  day  of  snow  or  icy 
wind  might  leave  them  just  scattered1  bones  and  torn 
rags  gnawed  by  a  famishing  wolf !  .  .  . 

She  felt  a  passionate  desire  to  pray.    .    .    . 

She  glanced  at  Trafford  beside  her,  and  found 
him  awake  and  staring.  His  face  was  very  pale  and 
strange  in  that  livid,  flickering  light.  She  would  have 
spoken,  and  then  she  saw  his  lips  were  moving,  and 
something,  something  she  did  not  understand,  held 
her  back  from  doing  so. 

§7 

The  bleak,  slow  dawn  found  Marjorie  intently 
busy.  She  had  made  up  the  fire,  boiled  water  and 
washed  and  dressed  Trafford's  wounds,  and  made 
another  soup  of  lynx.  But  Trafford  had  weakened 
in  the  night,  the  stuff  nauseated  him,  he  refused  it  and 
tried  to  smoke  and  was  sick,  and  then  sat  back  rather 
despairfully  after  a  second  attempt  to  persuade  her 
to  leave  him  there  to  die.  This  failure  of  his  spirit 


468  MARRIAGE 

distressed  her  and  a  little  astonished  her,  but  it  only 
made  her  more  resolute  to  go  through  with  her  work. 
She  had  awakened  cold,  stiff  and  weary,  but  her  fa- 
tigue vanished  with  movement ;  she  toiled  for  an  hour 
replenishing  her  pile  of  fuel,  made  up  the  fire,  put  his 
gun  ready  to  his  hand,  kissed  him,  abused  him  loving- 
ly for  the  trouble  he  gave  her  until  his  poor  torn  face 
lit  in  response,  and  then  parting  on  a  note  of  cheerful 
confidence  set  out  to  return  to  the  hut.  She  found  the 
way  not  altogether  easy  to  make  out,  wind  and  snow 
had  left  scarcely  a  trace  of  their  tracks,  and  her  mind 
was  full  of  the  stores  she  must  bring  and  the  possibil- 
ity of  moving  him  nearer  to  the  hut.  She  was  startled 
to  see  by  the  fresh,  deep  spoor  along  the  ridge  how 
near  the  wolf  had  dared  approach  them  in  the  dark- 
ness. .  .  . 

Ever  and  again  Marjorie  had  to  halt  and  look 
back  to  get  her  direction  right.  As  it  was  she  came 
through  the  willow  scrub  nearly  half  a  mile  above  the 
hut,  and  had  to  follow  the  steep  bank  of  the  frozen 
river  down.  At  one  place  she  nearly  slipped  upon  an 
icy  slope  of  rock. 

One  possibility  she  did  not  dare  to  think  of  during 
that  time ;  a  blizzard  now  would  cut  her  off  absolutely 
from  any  return  to  Trafford.  Short  of  that  she  be- 
lieved she  could  get  through. 

Her  quick  mind  was  full  of  all  she  had  to  do.  At 
first  she  had  thought  chiefly  of  his  immediate  neces- 
sities, of  food  and  some  sort  of  shelter.  She  had  got 
a  list  of  things  in  her  head — meat  extract,  bandages, 
corrosive  sublimate  by  way  of  antiseptic,  brandy,  a 
tin  of  beef,  some  bread  and  so  forth ;  she  went  over 
that  several  times  to  be  sure  of  it,  and  then  for  a  time 
she  puzzled  about  a  tent.  She  thought  she  could 
manage  a  bale  of  blankets  on  her  back,  and  that  she 
could  rig  a  sleeping  tent  for  herself  and  Trafford  with 


LONELY  HUT  469 

one  and  some  bent  sticks.  The  big  tent  would  be  too 
much  to  strike  and  shift.  And  then  her  mind  went  on 
to  a  bolder  enterprise,  which  was  to  get  him  home. 
The  nearer  she  could  bring  him  to  the  log  hut,  the 
nearer  they  would  be  to  supplies.  She  cast  about  for 
some  sort  of  sledge.  The  snow  was  too  soft  and  broken 
for  runners,  especially  among  the  trees,  but  if  she 
could  get  a  flat  of  smooth  wood  she  thought  she  might 
be  able  to  drag  him.  She  decided  to  try  the  side  of 
her  bunk.  She  could  easily  get  that  off.  She  would 
have,  of  course,  to  run  it  edgewise  through  the  thick- 
ets and  across  the  ravine,  but  after  that  she  would 
have  almost  clear  going  until  she  reached  the  steep 
place  of  broken  rocks  within  two  hundred  yards  of 
him.  The  idea  of  a  sledge  grew  upon  her,  and  she 
planned  to  nail  a  rope  along  the  edge  and  make  a 
kind  of  harness  for  herself. 

She  found  the  camping-place  piled  high  with 
drifted  snow,  which  had  invaded  tent  and  hut,  and 
that  some  beast,  a  wolverine  she  guessed,  had  been  in- 
to the  hut,  devoured  every  candle-end  and  the  uppers 
of  Trafford's  well-greased  second  boots,  and  had  then 
gone  to  the  corner  of  the  store  shed  and  clambered  up 
to  the  stores.  She  made  no  account  of  its  depreda- 
tions there,  but  set  herself  to  make  a  sledge  and  get 
her  supplies  together.  There  was  a  gleam  of  sun- 
shine, but  she  did  not  like  the  look  of  the  sky,  and  she 
was  horribly  afraid  of  what  might  be  happening  to 
Trafford.  She  carried  her  stuff  through  the  wood 
and  across  the  ravine,  and  returned  for  her  impro- 
vised sledge.  She  was  still  struggling  with  that  among 
the  trees  when  it  began  to  snow  again. 

It  was  hard  then  not  to  be  frantic  in  her  efforts. 
As  it  was,  she  packed  her  stuff  so  loosely  on  the  plank- 
ing that  she  had  to  repack  it,  and  she  started  without 
putting  on  her  snowshoes.  and  floundered  fifty  yards 


470  MARRIAGE 

before  she  discovered  that  omission.  The  snow  was 
now  falling  fast,  darkling  the  sky  and  hiding  every- 
thing but  objects  close  at  hand,  and  she  had  to  use  all 
her  wits  to  determine  her  direction ;  she  knew  she  must 
go  down  a  long  slope  and  then  up  to  the  ridge,  and  it 
came  to  her  as  a  happy  inspiration  that  if  she  bore  to 
the  left  she  might  strike  some  recognizable  vestige  of 
her  morning's  trail.  She  had  read  of  people  walking 
in  circles  when  they  have  no  light  or  guidance,  and 
that  troubled  her  until  she  bethought  herself  of  the 
little  compass  on  her  watch  chain.  By  that  she  kept 
her  direction.  She  wished  very  much  she  had  timed 
herself  across  the  waste,  so  that  she  could  tell  when 
she  approached  the  ridge. 

Soon  her  back  and  shoulders  were  aching  violent- 
ly, and  the  rope  across  her  chest  was  tugging  like 
some  evil-tempered  thing.  But  she  did  not  dare  to 
rest.  The  snow  was  now  falling  thick  and  fast,  the 
flakes  traced  white  spirals  and  made  her  head  spin,  so 
that  she  was  constantly  falling  away  to  the  south- 
westward  and  then  correcting  herself  by  the  compass. 
She  tried  to  think  how  this  zig-zagging  might  affect 
her  course,  but  the  snow  whirls  confused  her  mind  and 
a  growing  anxiety  would  not  let  her  pause  to  think. 
She  felt  blinded;  it  seemed  to  be  snowing  inside  her 
eyes  so  that  she  wanted  to  rub  them.  Soon  the 
ground  must  rise  to  the  ridge,  she  told  herself;  it 
must  surely  rise.  Then  the  sledge  came  bumping  at 
her  heels  and  she  perceived  she  was  going  down  hill. 
She  consulted  the  compass,  and  she  found  she  was  fac- 
ing south.  She  turned  sharply  to  the  right  again. 
The  snowfall  became  a  noiseless,  pitiless  torture  to 
sight  and  mind. 

The  sledge  behind  her  struggled  to  hold  her  back, 
and  the  snow  balled  under  her  snowshoes.  She  wanted 
to  stop  and  rest,  take  thought,  sit  for  a  moment.  She 


LONELY  HUT  471 

struggled  with  herself  and  kept  on.  She  tried  walk- 
ing with  shut  eyes,  and  tripped  and  came  near  sprawl- 
ing. "  Oh  God!"  she  cried,  "  oh  God!"  too  stupefied 
for  more  articulate  prayers. 

Would  the  rise  of  the  ground  to  the  ribs  of  rock 
never  come? 

A  figure,  black  and  erect,  stood  in  front  of  her 
suddenly,  and  beyond  appeared  a  group  of  black, 
straight  antagonists.  She  staggered  on  towards  them, 
gripping  her  rifle  with  some  muddled  idea  of  defence, 
and  in  another  moment  she  was  brushing  against  the 
branches  of  a  stunted  fir,  which  shed  thick  lumps  of 
snow  upon  her  feet.  What  trees  were  these?  Had 
she  ever  passed  any  trees  ?  No !  There  were  no  trees 
on  her  way  to  Trafford.  .  .  . 

She  began  whimpering  like  a  tormented  child. 
But  even  as  she  wept  she  turned  her  sledge  about  to 
follow  the  edge  of  the  wood.  She  was  too  much 
downhill,  she  thought  and  she  must  bear  up  again. 

She  left  the  trees  behind,  made  an  angle  uphill  to 
the  right,  and  was  presently  among  trees  again.  Again 
she  left  them  and  again  came  back  to  them.  She 
screamed  with  anger  at  them  and  twitched  her  sledge 
away.  She  wiped  at  the  snowstorm  with  her  arm  as 
though  she  would  wipe  it  away.  She  wanted  to  stamp 
on  the  universe.  .  .  . 

And  she  ached,  she  ached.    .    .    . 

Something  caught  her  eye  ahead,  something  that 
gleamed ;  it  was  exactly  like  a  long,  bare  rather  pink- 
ish bone  standing  erect  on  the  ground.  Just  because 
it  was  strange  and  queer  she  ran  forward  to  it.  Then 
as  she  came  nearer  she  perceived  it  was  a  streak  of 
barked  trunk ;  a  branch  had  been  torn  off  a  pine  tree 
and  the  bark  stripped  down  to  the  root.  And  then 
her  foot  hit  against  a  freshly  hewn  stump,  and  then 
came  another,  poking  its  pinkish  wounds  above  the 


472  MARRIAGE 

snow.  And  there  were  chips !  This  filled  her  with 
wonder.  Some  one  had  been  cutting  wood!  There 
must  be  Indians  or  trappers  near,  she  thought,  and 
then  realized  the  wood-cutter  could  be  none  other 
than  herself. 

She  turned  to  the  right  and  saw  the  rocks  rising 
steeply  close  at  hand.  "  Oh  Rag !"  she  cried,  and 
fired  her  rifle  in  the  air. 

Ten  seconds,  twenty  seconds,  and  then  so  loud  and 
near  it  amazed  her,  came  his  answering  shot.  It 
sounded  like  the  hillside  bursting. 

In  another  moment  she  had  discovered  the  trail 
she  had  made  overnight  and  that  morning  by  drag- 
ging firewood.  It  was  now  a  shallow  soft  white  trench. 
Instantly  her  despair  and  fatigue  had  gone  from  her. 
Should  she  take  a  load  of  wood  with  her?  she  asked 
herself,  in  addition  to  the  weight  behind  her,  and  had 
a  better  idea.  She  would  unload  and  pile  her  stuff 
here,  and  bring  him  down  on  the  sledge  closer  to  the 
wood.  She  looked  about  and  saw  two  rocks  that 
diverged  with  a  space  between.  She  flashed  schemes. 
She  would  trample  the  snow  hard  and  flat,  put  her 
sledge  on  it,  pile  boughs  and  make  a  canopy  of  blanket 
overhead  and  behind.  Then  a  fire  in  front. 

She  saw  her  camp  admirable.  She  tossed  her  pro- 
visions down  and  ran  up  the  broad  windings  of  her 
pine-tree  trail  to  Trafford,  with  the  unloaded  sledge 
bumping  behind  her.  She  ran  as  lightly  as  though 
she  had  done  nothing  that  day. 

She  found  him  markedly  recovered,  weak  and 
quiet,  with  snow  drifting  over  his  feet,  his  rifle  across 
his  knees,  and  his  pipe  alight.  "  Back  already,"  he 
said,  "  but » 

He  hesitated.     "No  grub?" 

She  knelt  over  him,  gave  his  rough  unshaven  cheek 
a  swift  kiss,  and  very  rapidly  explained  her  plan. 


LONELY  HUT  473 

§8 

In  three  days'  time  they  were  back  at  the  hut,  and 
the  last  two  days  they  wore  blue  spectacles  because  of 
the  mid-day  glare  of  the  sunlit  snow. 

It  amazed  Marjorie  to  discover  as  she  lay  awake 
in  the  camp  on  the  edge  of  the  ravine  close  to  the  hut 
to  which  she  had  lugged  Trafford  during  the  second 
day,  that  she  was  deeply  happy.  It  was  preposterous 
that  she  should  be  so,  but  those  days  of  almost  des- 
pairful stress  were  irradiated  now  by  a  new  courage. 
She  was  doing  this  thing,  against  all  Labrador  and 
the  snow-driving  wind  that  blew  from  the  polar  wilder- 
ness, she  was  winning.  It  was  a  great  discovery  to 
her  that  hardship  and  effort  almost  to  the  breaking- 
point  could  ensue  in  so  deep  a  satisfaction.  She  lay 
and  thought  how  deep  and  rich  life  had  become  for 
her,  as  though  in  all  this  effort  and  struggle  some  un- 
suspected veil  had  been  torn  away.  She  perceived 
again,  but  now  with  no  sense  of  desolation,  that  same 
infinite  fragility  of  life  which  she  had  first  perceived 
when  she  had  watched  the  Aurora  Borealis  flickering 
up  the  sky.  Beneath  that  realization  and  carrying 
it,  as  a  river  flood  may  carry  scum,  was  a  sense  of 
herself  as  something  deeper,  greater,  more  enduring 
than  mountain  or  wilderness  or  sky,  or  any  of  those 
monstrous  forms  of  nature  that  had  dwarfed  her 
physical  self  to  nothingness. 

She  had  a  persuasion  of  self  detachment  and  illu- 
mination, and  withal  of  self-discovery.  She  saw  her 
life  of  time  and  space  for  what  it  was.  Away  in 
London  the  children,  with  the  coldest  of  noses  and  the 
gayest  of  spirits,  would  be  scampering  about  their 
bedrooms  in  the  mild  morning  sunlight  of  a  London 
winter;  Elsie,  the  parlourmaid,  would  be  whisking 
dexterous  about  the  dining-room,  the  bacon  would  be 


474  MARRIAGE 

cooking  and  the  coffee-mill  at  work,  the  letters  of  the 
morning  delivery  perhaps  just  pattering  into  the  let- 
ter-box, and  all  the  bright  little  household  she  had 
made,  with  all  the  furniture  she  had  arranged,  all  the 
characteristic  decoration  she  had  given  it,  all  the 
clever  convenient  arrangements,  would  be  getting  it- 
self into  action  for  another  day — and  it  wasn't  her- 
self! It  was  the  extremest  of  her  superficiality. 

She  had  come  out  of  all  that,  and  even  so  it  seem- 
ed she  had  come  out  of  herself;  this  weary  woman 
lying  awake  on  the  balsam  boughs  with  a  brain  clear- 
ed by  underfeeding  and  this  continuous  arduous  bath 
of  toil  in  snow-washed,  frost  cleansed,  starry  air,  this, 
too,  was  no  more  than  a  momentarily  clarified  window 
for  her  unknown  and  indefinable  reality.  What  was 
that  reality?  what  was  she  herself?  She  became  in- 
terested in  framing  an  answer  to  that,  and  slipped 
down  from  the  peace  of  soul  she  had  attained.  Her 
serenity  gave  way  to  a  reiteration  of  this  question, 
reiterations  increasing  and  at  last  oppressing  like  the 
snowflakes  of  a  storm,  perpetual  whirling  repetitions 
that  at  last  confused  her  and  hid  the  sky.  .  .  . 

She  fell  asleep.    .    .    . 

§9 

With  their  return  to  the  hut,  Marjorie  had  found 
herself  encountering  a  new  set  of  urgencies.  In  their 
absence  that  wretched  little  wolverine  had  found  great 
plenty  and(  happiness  in  the  tent  and  store-shed;  its 
traces  were  manifest  nearly  everywhere,  and  it  had 
particularly  assailed  the  candles,  after  a  destructive 
time  among  the  frozen  caribou  beef.  It  had  clamber- 
ed up  on  the  packages  of  sardines  and  jumped  thence 
on  to  a  sloping  pole  that  it  could  claw  along  into  the 
frame  of  the  roof.  She  rearranged  the  packages. 


LONELY  HUT  475 

but  that  was  no  good.  She  could  not  leave  Trafford 
in  order  to  track  the  brute  down,  and  for  a  night  or 
so  she  could  not  think  of  any  way  of  checking  its  de- 
predations. It  came  each  night.  .  .  .  Trafford  kept 
her  close  at  home.  She  had  expected  that  when  he 
was  back  in  his  bunk,  secure  and  warm,  he  would  heal 
rapidly,  but  instead  he  suddenly  developed  all  the 
symptoms  of  a  severe  feverish  cold,  and  his  scars, 
which  had  seemed  healing,  became  flushed  and  ugly- 
looking.  Moreover,  there  was  something  wrong  with 
his  leg,  an  ominous  ache  that  troubled  her  mind. 
Every  woman,  she  decided,  ought  to  know  how  to  set 
a  bone.  He  was  unable  to  sleep  by  reason  of  these- 
miseries,  though  very  desirous  of  doing  so.  He  be- 
came distressingly  weak  and  inert,  he  ceased  to  care 
for  food,  and  presently  he  began  to,  talk  to  himself 
with  a  complete  disregard  of  her  presence.  Hourly 
she  regretted  her  ignorance  of  medicine  that  left  her 
with  no  conceivable  remedy  for  all  the  aching  and 
gnawing  that  worried  and  weakened  him,  except  bath- 
ing with  antiseptics  and  a  liberal  use  of  quinine. 

And  his  face  became  strange  to  her,  for  over  his 
flushed  and  sunken  cheeks,  under  the  raw  spaces  of 
the  scar  a  blond  beard  bristled  and  grew.  Presently, 
Trafford  was  a  bearded  man. 

Incidentally,  however,  she  killed  the  wolverine  by 
means  of  a  trap  of  her  own  contrivance,  a  loaded  rifle 
with  a  bait  of  what  was  nearly  her  last  candles,  rigged 
to  the  trigger. 

But  this  loss  of  the  candles  brought  home  to  them 
the  steady  lengthening  of  the  nights.  Scarcely  seven 
hours  of  day  remained  now  in  the  black,  cold  grip  of 
the  darkness.  And  through  those  seventeen  hours  of 
chill  aggression  they  had  no  light  but  the  red  glow 
of  the  stove.  She  had  to  close  the  door  of  the  hut  and 
bar  every  chink  and  cranny  against  the  icy  air,  that 


476  MARRIAGE 

became  at  last  a  murderous,  freezing  wind.  Not 
only  did  she  line  the  hut  with  every  scrap  of  skin 
and  paper  she  could  obtain,  but  she  went  out  with  the 
spade  toiling  for  three  laborious  afternoons  in  piling 
and  beating  snow  against  the  outer  frame.  And  now 
it  was  that  Trafford  talked  at  last,  talked  with  some- 
thing of  the  persistence  of  delirium,  and  she  sat  and 
listened  hour  by  hour,  silently,  for  he  gave  no  heed  to 
her  or  to  anything  she  might  say.  He  talked,  it 
seemed,  to  God.  .  .  . 

§   10 

Darkness  about  a  sullen  glow  of  red,  and  a  voice 
speaking. 

The  voice  of  a  man,  fevered  and  in  pain,  wounded 
and  amidst  hardship  and  danger,  struggling  with  the 
unrelenting  riddle  of  his  being.  Ever  and  again  when 
a  flame  leapt  she  would  see  his  face,  haggard,  bearded, 
changed,  and  yet  infinitely  familiar. 

His  voice  varied,  now  high  and  clear,  now  mumb- 
ling, now  vexed  and  expostulating,  now  rich  with  deep 
feeling,  now  fagged  and  slow ;  his  matter  varied,  too ; 
now  he  talked  like  one  who  is  inspired,  and  now  like 
one  lost  and  confused,  stupidly  repeating  phrases, 
going  back  upon  a  misleading  argument,  painfully, 
laboriously  beginning  over  and  over  again.  Mar j  orie 
sat  before  the  stove  watching  it  burn  and  sink,  re- 
plenishing it,  preparing  food,  and  outside  the  bitter 
wind  moaned  and  blew  the  powdery  snow  before  it,  and 
the  shortening  interludes  of  pallid,  diffused  daylight 
which  pass  for  days  in  such  weather,  came  and  went. 
Intense  cold  had  come  now  with  leaden  snowy  days 
and  starless  nights. 

Sometimes  his  speech  filled  her  mind,  seemed  to 
fill  all  her  world ;  sometimes  she  ceased  to  listen,  f ol- 


LONELY  HUT  477 

lowing  thoughts  of  her  own.  Sometimes  she  dozed; 
sometimes  she  awakened  from  sleep  to  find  him  talk- 
ing. But  slowly  she  realized  a  thread  in  his  discourse, 
a  progress  and  development. 

Sometimes  he  talked  of  his  early  researches,  and 
then  he  would  trace  computations  with  his  hands  as  if 
he  were  using  a  blackboard,  and  became  distressed  to 
remember  what  he  had  written.  Sometimes  he  would 
be  under  the  claws  of  the  lynx  again,  and  fighting  for 
his  eyes.  "Ugh !"  he  said,  "  keep  those  hind  legs 
still.  Keep  your  hind  legs  still!  Knife?  Knife? 
Ah!  got  it.  Gu — u — u,  you  Beast!" 

But  the  gist  of  his  speech  was  determined  by  the 
purpose  of  his  journey  to  Labrador.  At  last  he  was 
reviewing  his  life  and  hers,  and  all  that  their  life  might 
signify,  even  as  he  determined  to  do.  She  began  to 
perceive  that  whatever  else  drifted  into  his  mind  and 
talk,  this  recurred  and  grew,  that  he  returned  to  the 
conclusion  he  had  reached,  and  not  to  the  beginning 
of  the  matter,  and  went  on  from  that.  .  .  . 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  "  our  lives  are  nothing — 
nothing  in  themselves.  I  know  that;  I've  never  had 
any  doubts  of  that.  We  individuals  just  pick  up  a 
mixed  lot  of  things  out  of  the  powers  that  begat  us, 
and  lay  them  down  again  presently  a  little  altered, 
that's  all — heredities,  traditions,  the  finger  nails  of 
my  grandfather,  a  great-aunt's  lips,  the  faith  of  a 
sect,  the  ideas  of  one's  time.  We  live  and  then  we  die, 
and  the  threads  run,  dispersing  this  way  and  that.  To 
make  other  people  again.  Whatever's  immortal  isn't 
that,  our  looks  or  our  habits,  our  thoughts  or  our 
memories — just  the  shapes,  these  are,  of  one  im- 
mortal stuff.  .  .  .  One  immortal  stuff."  .  .  . 

The  voice  died  away  as  if  he  was  baffled.  Then 
it  resumed. 

"  But  we  ought  to  partake  of  immortality ;  that's 
my  point.  We  ought  to  partake  of  immortality. 


478  MARRIAGE 

"  I  mean  we're  like  the  little  elements  in  a  mag- 
net; ought  not  to  lie  higgledy-piggledy,  ought  to 

point  the  same  way,  be  polarized Something  mi- 

crocosmic,  you  know,  ought  to  be  found  in  a  man. 

"  Analogies  run  away  with  one.  Suppose  the  bar 
isn't  magnetized  yet !  Suppose  purpose  has  to  come ; 
suppose  the  immortal  stuff  isn't  yet,  isn't  being  but 
struggling  to  be.  Struggling  to  be.  ...  Gods !  that 
morning!  When  the  child  was  born!  And  after- 
wards she  was  there — with  a  smile  on  her  lips,  and  a 
little  flushed  and  proud — as  if  nothing  had  happened 
so  very  much  out  of  the  way.  Nothing  so  wonderful. 
And  we  had  another  life  besides  our  own !  .  .  . " 

Afterwards  he  came  back  to  that.  "  That  was  a 
good  image,"  he  said,  "  something  trying  to  exist, 
which  isn't  substance,  doesn't  belong  to  space  or  time, 
something  stifled  and  enclosed,  struggling  to  get 
through.  Just  confused  birth  cries,  eyes  that  hardly 
see,  deaf  ears,  poor  little  thrusting  hands.  A  thing 
altogether  blind  at  first,  a  twitching  and  thrusting  of 
protoplasm  under  the  waters,  and  then  the  plants 
creeping  up  the  beaches,  the  insects  and  reptiles  on 
the  margins  of  the  rivers,  beasts  with  a  flicker  of 
light  in  their  eyes  answering  the  sun.  And  at  last, 
out  of  the  long  interplay  of  desire  and  fear,  an  ape, 
an  ape  that  stared  and  wondered,  and  scratched  queer 
pictures  on  a  bone.  ..." 

He  lapsed  into  silent  thought  for  a  time,  and 
Marjorie  glanced  at  his  dim  face  in  the  shadows. 

66 1  say  nothing  of  ultimates,"  he  said  at  last. 

He  repeated  that  twice  before  his  thoughts  would 
flow  again. 

66  This  is  as  much  as  I  see,  in  time  as  I  know  it  and 
space  as  I  know  it — something  struggling  to  exist. 
It's  true  to  the  end  of  my  limits.  What  can  I  say 
beyond  that?  It  struggles  to  exist,  becomes  conscious, 


LONELY  HUT  479 

becomes  now  conscious  of  itself.  That  is  where  I  come 
in,  as  a  part  of  it.  Above  the  beast  in  me  is  that — 
the  desire  to  know  better,  to  know — beautifully,  and 
to  transmit  my  knowledge.  That's  all  there  is  in  life 
for  me  beyond  food  and  shelter  and  tidying  up.  This 
Being — opening  its  eyes,  listening,  trying  to  compre- 
hend. Every  good  thing  in  man  is  that; — looking 
and  making  pictures,  listening  and  making  songs, 
making  philosophies  and  sciences,  trying  new  powers, 
bridge  and  engine,  spark  and  gun.  At  the  bottom  of 
my  soul,  that.  We  began  with  bone-scratching.  We're 
still — near  it.  I  am  just  a  part  of  this  beginning — 
mixed  with  other  things.  Every  book,  every  art, 
every  religion  is  that,  the  attempt  to  understand  and 
express — mixed  with  other  things.  Nothing  else  mat- 
ters, nothing  whatever.  I  tell  you Nothing 

whatever ! 

"I've  always  believed  that.  All  my  life  I've  be- 
lieved that. 

"  Only  I've  forgotten." 

"  Every  man  with  any  brains  believes  that  at  the 
bottom  of  his  heart.  Only  he  gets  busy  and  forgets. 
He  goes  shooting  lynxes  and  breaks  his  leg.  Odd, 
instinctive,  brutal  thing  to  do — to  go  tracking  down 
a  lynx  to  kill  it!  I  grant  you  that,  Marjorie.  I  grant 
you  that." 

"  Grant  me  what  ?"  she  cried,  startled  beyond 
measure  to  hear  herself  addressed. 

"  Grant  you  that  it  is  rather  absurd  to  go  hunt- 
ing a  lynx.  And  what  big  paws  it  has — dispropor- 
tionately big!  I  wonder  if  that's  an  adaptation  to 
snow.  Tremendous  paws  they  are.  .  .  .  But  the 
real  thing,  I  was  saying,  the  real  thing  is  to  get 
knowledge,  and  express  it.  All  things  lead  up  to  that. 
Civilization,  social  order,  just  for  that.  Except  for 
that,  all  the  life  of  man,  all  his  affairs,  his  laws  and 


480  MARRIAGE 

police,  his  morals  and  manners — nonsense,  nonsense, 
nonsense.  Lynx  hunts !  Just  ways  of  getting  them- 
selves mauled  and  clawed  perhaps — into  a  state  of 
understanding.  Who  knows?  ..." 

His  voice  became  low  and  clear. 

"  Understanding  spreading  like   a  dawn.    .    .    . 

"  Logic  and  language,  clumsy  implements,  but 
rising  to  our  needs,  rising  to  our  needs,  thought 
clarified,  enriched,  reaching  out  to  every  man  alive — 
some  day — presently — touching  every  man  alive,  har- 
monizing acts  and  plans,  drawing  men  into  gigantic 
co-operations,  tremendous  co-operations.  .  .  . 

"  Until  man  shall  stand  upon  this  earth  as  upon 
a  footstool  and  reach  out  his  hand  among  the  stars. 

"  And  then  I  went  into  the  rubber  market,  and 
spent  seven  years  of  my  life  driving  shares  up  and 
down  and  into  a  net !  .  .  .  Queer  game  indeed ! 
Stupid  ass  Behrens  was — at  bottom.  .  .  . 

"  There's  a  flaw  in  it  somewhere.    .    .    . " 

He  came  back  to  that  several  times  before  he 
seemed  able  to  go  on  from  it. 

"  There  is  a  collective  mind,"  he  said,  "  a  grow- 
ing general  consciousness — growing  clearer.  Some- 
thing put  me  away  from  that,  but  I  know  it.  My 
work,  my  thinking,  was  a  part  of  it.  That's  why 
I  was  so  mad  about  Behrens." 

"Behrens?" 

"  Of  course.  He'd  got  a  twist,  a  wrong  twist.  It 
makes  me  angry  now.  It  will  take  years,  it  will  eat 
up  some  brilliant  man  to  clean  up  after  Behrens 

"  Yes,  but  the  point  is" — his  voice  became  acute 
— "  why  did  I  go  making  money  and  let  Behrens  in  ? 
Why  generally  and  in  all  sorts  of  things  does  Behrens 
come  in?  .  .  ." 

He  was  silent  for  a  long  time,  and  then  he  began 


LONELY  HUT  481 

to  answer  himself.  "  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  I  said  it — 
or  somebody  said  it — about  this  collective  mind  being 
mixed  with  other  things.  It's  something  arising  out 
of  life — not  the  common  stuff  of  life.  An  exhala- 
tion. .  .  .  It's  like  the  little  tongues  of  fire  that  came 
at  Pentecost.  .  .  .  Queer  how  one  comes  drifting 
back  to  these  images.  Perhaps  I  shall  die  a  Christian 
yet.  .  .  .  The  other  Christians  won't  like  me  if  I  do. 
What  was  I  saying?  .  .  .  It'si  what  I  reach  up  to, 
what  I  desire  shall  pervade  me,  not  what  I  am.  Just 
as  far  as  I  give  myself  purely  to  knowledge,  to  mak- 
ing feeling  and  thought  clear  in  my  mind  and  words, 
to  the  understanding  and  expression  of  the  realties 
and  relations  of  life,  just  so  far  do  I  achieve  Salva- 
tion. .  .  .  Salvation!  .  .  . 

"  I  wonder,  is  Salvation  the  same  for  every  one  ? 
Perhaps  for  one  man  Salvation  is  research  and 
thought,  and  for  another  expression  in  art,  and  for 
another  nursing  lepers.  Provided  he  does  it  in  the 
spirit.  He  has  to  do  it  in  the  spirit.  ..." 

There  came  a  silence  as  though  some  difficulty 
baffled  him,  and  he  was  feeling  back  to  get  his  argu- 
ment again. 

"  This  flame  that  arises  out  of  life,  that  redeems 
life  from  purposeless  triviality,  isn't  life.  Let  me  get 
hold  of  that.  That's  a  point.  That's  a  very  import- 
ant point." 

Something  had  come  to  him. 

"  I've  never  talked  of  this  to  Marjorie.  I've  lived 
with  her  nine  years  and  more,  and  never  talked  of 
religion.  Not  once.  That's  so  queer  of  us.  Any 
other  couple  in  any  other  time  would  have  talked 
religion  no  end.  .  .  .  People  ought  to." 

Then  he  stuck  out  an  argumentative  hand1.  "  You 
see,  Marjorie  is  life,"  he  said, 

"  She  took  me," 


482  MARRIAGE 

He  spoke  slowly,  as  though  he  traced  things  care- 
fully. "  Before  I  met  her  I  suppose  I  wasn't  half 
alive.  No !  Yet  I  don't  remember  I  felt  particularly 
incomplete.  Women  were  interesting,  of  course ;  they 
excited  me  at  times,  that  girl  at  Yonkers ! — H'm.  I 
stuck  to  my  work.  It  was  fine  work,  I  forget  half  of 
it  now,  the  half-concealed  intimations  I  mean — queer 
how  one  forgets ! — but  I  know  I  felt  my  way  to  wide, 
deep  things.  It  was  like  exploring  caves — monstrous, 
limitless  caves.  Such  caves !  .  .  .  Very  still — under- 
ground. Wonderful  and  beautiful.  .  .  .  They're 
lying  there  now  for  other  men  to  seek.  Other  men 
will  find  them.  .  .  .  Then  she  came,  as  though  she 
was  taking  possession.  The  beauty  of  her,  oh!  the 
life  and  bright  eagerness,  and  the  incompatibility! 
That's  the  riddle!  I've  loved  her  always.  When  she 
came  to  my  arms  it  seemed  to  me  the  crown  of  life. 
Caves  indeed!  Old  caves!  Nothing  else  seemed  to 
matter.  But  something  did.  All  sorts  of  things  did. 
I  found  that  out  soon  enough.  And  when  that  first 
child  was  born.  That  for  a  time  was  supreme.  .  .  . 
Yes — she's  the  quintessence  of  life,  the  dear  greed  of 
her,  the  appetite,  the  clever  appetite  for  things.  She 
grabs.  She's  so  damned  clever !  The  light  in  her  eyes  ! 
Her  quick  sure  hands!  .  .  .  Only  my  work  was 
crowded  out  of  my  life  and  ended,  and  she  didn't 
seem  to  feel  it,  she  didn't  seem  to  mind  it.  There  was 
a  sort  of  disregard.  Disregard.  As  though  all  that 
didn't  really  matter.  ..." 

"  My  dear!'9  whispered  Marjorie  unheeded.  She 
wanted  to  tell  him  it  mattered  now,  mattered  su- 
premely, but  she  knew  he  had  no  ears  for  her. 

His  voice  flattened.  "  It's  perplexing,"  he  said. 
"  The  two  different  things." 

Then  suddenly  he  cried  out  harshly :  "  I  ought 
never  to  have  married  her — never,  never!  I  had  my 


LONELY  HUT  483 

task.  I  gave  myself  to  her.  Oh !  the  high  immensities, 
the  great  and  terrible  things  open  to  the  mind  of 
man !  And  we  breed  children  and  live  in  littered  houses 
and  play  with  our  food  and  chatter,  chatter,  chatter. 
Oh,  the  chatter  of  my  life!  The  folly!  The  women 
with  their  clothes.  I  can  hear  them  rustle  now,  whiff 
the  scent  of  it!  The  scandals — as  though  the  things 
they  did  with  themselves  and  each  other  mattered  a 
rap;  the  little  sham  impromptu  clever  things,  the 
trying  to  keep  young — and  underneath  it  all  that 
continual  cheating,  cheating,  cheating,  damning 
struggle  for  money !  .  .  . 

"  Marjorie,  Marjorie,  Marjorie!  Why  is  she  so 
good  and  no  better!  Why  wasn't  she  worth  it  al- 
together? .  .  . 

"  No !  I  don't  want  to  go  on  with  it  any  more — 
ever.  I  want  to  go  back. 

"  I  want  my  life  over  again,  and  to  go  back. 

"  I  want  research,  and  the  spirit  of  research  that 
has  died  in  me,  and  that  still,  silent  room  of  mine 
again,  that  room,  as  quiet  as  a  cell,  and  the  toil  that 
led  to  light.  Oh!  the  coming  of  that  light,  the 
up  rush  of  discovery,  the  solemn  joy  as  the  generali- 
zation rises  like  a  sun  upon  the  facts — floods  them 
with  a  common  meaning.  That  is  what  I  want.  That 
is  what  I  have  always  wanted.  .  .  . 

"  Give  me  my  time  oh  God !  again ;  I  am  sick  of 
this  life  I  have  chosen.  I  am  sick  of  it !  This — busy 
death !  Give  me  my  time  again.  .  .  .  Why  did  you 
make  me,  and  then  waste  me  like  this?  Why  are  we 
made  for  folly  upon  folly  ?  Folly !  and  brains  made  to 
scale  high  heaven,  smeared  into  the  dust!  Into  the 
dust,  into  the  dust.  Dust !  .  .  . " 

He  passed  into  weak,  wandering  repetitions  of 
disconnected  sentences,  that  died  into  whispers  and 
silence,  and  Marjorie  watched  him  and  listened  to 


484  MARRIAGE 

him,  and  waited  with  a  noiseless  dexterity  upon  his 
every  need. 

§  11 

One  day,  she  did  not  know  what  day,  for  she  had 
lost  count  of  the  days,  Marjorie  set  the  kettle  to  boil 
and  opened  the  door  of  the  hut  to  look  out,  and  the 
snow  was  ablaze  with  diamonds,  and  the  air  was  sweet 
and  still.  It  occurred  to  her  that  it  would  be  well  to 
take  Trafford  out  into  that  brief  brightness.  She 
looked  at  him  and  found  his  eyes  upon  the  sunlight 
quiet  and  rather  wondering  eyes. 

"  Would  you  like  to  get  out  into  that  ?"  she  asked 
abruptly. 

"  Yes,"  he  said,  and  seemed  disposed  to  get  up. 

"  You've  got  a  broken  leg,"  she  cried,  to  arrest 
his  movement,  and  he  looked  at  her  and  answered: 
"  Of  course— I  forgot." 

She  was  all  atremble  that  he  should  recognize  her 
and  speak  to  her.  She  pulled  her  rude  old  sledge 
alongside  his  bunk,  and  kissed  him,  and  showed  him 
how  to  shift  and  drop  himself  upon  the  plank.  She 
took  him  in  her  arms  and  lowered  him.  He  helped 
weakly  but  understandingly,  and  she  wrapped  him  up 
warmly  on  the  planks  and  lugged  him  out  and  built 
up  a  big  fire  at  his  feet,  wondering,  but  as  yet  too 
fearful  to  rejoice,  at  the  change  that  had  come  to 
him. 

He  said  no  more,  but  his  eyes  watched  her  move 
about  with  a  kind  of  tired  curiosity.  He  smiled  for  a 
time  at  the  sun,  and  shut  his  eyes,  and  still  faintly 
smiling,  lay  still.  She  had  a  curious  fear  that  if  she 
tried  to  talk  to  him  this  new  lucidity  would  vanish 
again.  She  went  about  the  business  of  the  morning, 
glancing  at  him  ever  and  again,  until  suddenly  the 


LONELY  HUT  485 

calm  of  his  upturned  face  smote  her,  and  she  ran  to 
him  and  crouched  down  to  him  between  hope  and  a 
terrible  fear,  and  found  that  he  was  sleeping,  and 
breathing  very  lightly,  sleeping  with  the  deep  uncon- 
sciousness of  a  child.  .  .  . 

When  he  awakened  the  sun  was  red  in  the  west. 
His  eyes  met  hers,  and  he  seemed  a  little  puzzled. 

"I've  been  sleeping,  Madge?"  he  said. 

She  nodded. 

"  And  dreaming?  I've  a  vague  sort  of  memory  of 
preaching  and  preaching  in  a  kind  of  black,  empty 
place,  where  there  wasn't  anything.  ...  A  fury  of 
exposition  ...  a  kind  of  argument.  ...  I  say ! — Is 
there  such  a  thing  in  the  world  as  a  new-laid  egg — 
and  some  bread-and-butter?" 

He  seemed  to  reflect.  "  Of  course,"  he  said,  "  I 
broke  my  leg.  Gollys !  I  thought  that  beast  was 
going  to  claw  my  eyes  out.  Lucky,  Madge,  it  didn't 
get  my  eyes.  It  was  just  a  chance  it  didn't." 

He  stared  at  her. 

"  I  say,"  he  said,  "  you've  had  a  pretty  rough 
time!  How  long  has  this  been  going  on?" 

He  amazed  her  by  rising  himself  on  his  elbow  and 
sitting  up. 

"  Your  leg !"  she  cried. 

He  put  his  hand  down  and  felt  it.  "  Pretty  stiff," 
he  said.  "  You  get  me  some  food — there  were  some 
eggs,  Madge,  frozen  new-laid,  anyhow — and  then  we'll 
take  these  splints  off  and  feel  about  a  bit.  Eh !  why 
not?  How  did  you  get  me  out  of  that  scrape,  Madge? 
I  thought  I'd  got  to  be  froze  as  safe  as  eggs.  (Those 
eggs  ought  to  be  all  right,  you  know.  If  you  put 
them  on  in  a  saucepan  and  wait  until  they  boil.)  I've 
a  sort  of  muddled  impression.  .  .  .  By  Jove,  Madge, 
you've  had  a  time !  I  say  you  have  had  a  time !" 


486  MARRIAGE 

His  eyes,  full  of  a  warmth  of  kindliness  she  had 
not  seen  for  long  weeks,  scrutinized  her  face.  "  I 
say!"  he  repeated,  very  softly. 

All  her  strength  went  from  her  at  his  tenderness. 
"  Oh,  my  dear,"  she  wailed,  kneeling  at  his  side,  "  my 
dear,  dear!"  and  still  regardful  of  his  leg,  she  yet 
contrived  to  get  herself  weeping  into  his  coveted  amis. 

He  regarded  her,  he  held  her,  he  patted  her  back  ! 
The  infinite  luxury  to  her!  He'd  come  back.  He'd 
come  back  to  her. 

"  How  long  has  it  been?"  he  asked.  "  Poor  dear! 
Poor  dear!  How  long  can  it  have  been?" 


From  that  hour  Trafford  mended.  He  remained 
clear-minded,  helpful,  sustaining.  His  face  healed 
daily.  Marjorie  had  had  to  cut  away  great  fragments 
of  gangrenous  frozen  flesh,  and  he  was  clearly  des- 
tined to  have  a  huge  scar  over  forehead  and  cheek, 
but  in  that  pure,  clear  air,  once  the  healing  had  be- 
gun it  progressed  swiftly.  His  leg  had  set,  a  little 
shorter  than  its  fellow  and  with  a  lump  in  the  middle 
of  the  shin,  but  it  promised  to  be  a  good  serviceable 
leg  none  the  less.  They  examined  it  by  the  light  of 
the  stove  with  their  heads  together,  and  discussed 
when  it  would  be  wise  to  try  it.  How  do  doctors  tell 
when  a  man  may  stand  on  his  broken  leg?  She  had  a 
vague  impression  you  must  wait  six  weeks,  but  she 
could  not  remember  why  she  fixed  upon  that  time. 

"  It  seems  a  decent  interval,"  said  Trafford. 
"  We'll  try  it." 

She  had  contrived  a  crutch  for  him  against  that 
momentous  experiment,  and  he  sat  up  in  his  bunk, 
pillowed  up  by  a  sack  and  her  rugs,  and  whittled  it 
smooth,  and  padded  the  fork  with  the  skin  of  that 


LONELY  HUT  487 

slaughtered  wolverine,  poor  victim  of  hunger ! — while 
she  knelt  by  the  stove  feeding  it  with  logs,  and  gave 
him  an  account  of  their  position. 

"  We're  somewhere  in  the  middle  of  December," 
she  said,  "somewhere  between  the  twelfth  and  the 
fourteenth, — yes!  I'm  as  out  as  that! — and  I've 
handled  the  stores  pretty  freely.  So  did  that  little 
beast  until  I  got  him."  She  nodded  at  the  skin  in 
his  hand.  "  I  don't  see  myself  shooting  much  now, 
and  so  far  I've  not  been  able  to  break  the  ice  to  fish. 
It's  too  much  for  me.  Even  if  it  isn't  too  late  to 
fish.  This  book  we've  got  describes  barks  and  mosses, 
and  that  will  help,  but  if  we  stick  here  until  the  birds 
and  things  come,  we're  going  to  be  precious  short. 
We  may  have  to  last  right  into  July.  I've  plans — 
but  it  may  come  to  that.  We  ought  to  ration  all  the 
regular  stuff,  and  trust  to  luck  for  a  feast.  The 
rations ! — I  don't  know  what  they'll  come  to." 

"  Right  O,"  said  Trafford  admiring  her  capable 
gravity.  "  Let's  ration." 

"  Marjorie,"  he  asked  abruptly,  "  are  you  sorry 
we  came?" 

Her  answer  came  unhesitatingly.    "No!" 

"  Nor  I." 

He  paused.  "  I've  found  you  out,"  he  said. 
"  Dear  dirty  living  thing !  .  .  .  You  are  dirty,  you 
know." 

"  I've  found  myself,"  she  answered,  thinking.  "  I 
feel  as  if  I've  never  loved  you  until  this  hut.  I  sup- 
pose I  have  in  my  way " 

"  Lugano,"  he  suggested.  "  Don't  let's  forget 
good  things,  Marjorie.  "Oh!  And  endless  times!" 

"  Oh,  of  course !  As  for  that /  But  now — 

now  you're  in  my  bones.  We  were  just  two  shallow, 
pretty,  young  things — loving.  It  was  sweet,  dear — 
sweet  as  youth — but  not  this.  Unkempt  and  weary— 


488  MARRIAGE 

then  one  understands  love.  I  suppose  I  am  ctirty. 
Think  of  it!  I've  lugged  you  through  the  snow  till 
my  shoulders  chafed  and  bled.  I  cried  with  pain,  and 

kept  on  lugging Oh,  my  dear!  my  dear!"  He 

kissed  her  hair.  "  I've  held  you  in  my  arms  to  keep 
you  from  freezing.  (I'd  have  frozen  myself  first.) 
We've  got  to  starve  together  perhaps  before  the  end. 
.  .  .  Dear,  if  I  could  make  you,  you  should  eat  me. 
.  .  .  I'm — I'm  beginning  to  understand.  I've  had  a 
light.  I've  begun  to  understand.  I've  begun  to  see 
what  life  has  been  for  you,  and  how  I've  wasted — 
wasted." 

"We've  wasted!" 

"  No,"  she  said,  "  it  was  I." 

She  sat  back  on  the  floor  and  regarded  him.  "  You 
don't  remember  things  you  said — when  you  were 
delirious  ?" 

"  No,"  he  answered.    "  What  did  I  say?" 

"  Nothing?" 

"  Nothing  clearly.     What  did  I  say?" 

"  It  doesn't  matter.  No,  indeed.  Only  you  made 
me  understand.  You'd  never  have  told  me.  You've 
always  been  a  little  weak  with  me  there.  But  it's 
plain  to  me  why  we  didn't  keep  our  happiness,  why 
we  were  estranged.  If  we  go  back  alive,  we  go  back — 
all  that  settled  for  good  and  all." 

"What?" 

"  That  discord.  My  dear,  I've  been  a  fool,  self- 
ish, ill-trained  and  greedy.  We've  both  been  floun- 
dering about,  but  I've  been  the  mischief  of  it.  Yes, 
I've  been  the  trouble.  Oh,  it's  had  to  be  so.  What 
are  we  women — half  savages,  half  pets,  unemployed 
things  of  greed  and  desire — and  suddenly  we  want  all 
the  rights  and  respect  of  souls !  I've  had  your  life  in 
my  hands  from  the  moment  we  met  together.  If  I 
had1  known.  ...  It  isn't  that  we  can  make  you  or 


LONELY  HUT  489 

guide  you — I'm  not  pretending  to  be  an  inspiration — 
but — but  we  can  release  you.  We  needn't  press  upon 
you ;  we  can  save  you  from  the  instincts  and  passions 
that  try  to  waste  you  altogether  on  us.  ...  Yes,  I'm 
beginning  to  understand.  Oh,  my  child,  my  husband, 
my  man!  You  talked  of  your  wasted  life!  .  .  .  I've 
been  thinking — since  first  we  left  the  Mersey.  I've 
begun  to  see  what  it  is  to  be  a  woman.  For  the  first 
time  in  my  life.  We're  the  responsible  sex.  And 
we've  forgotten  it.  We  think  we've  done  a  wonder  if 
we've  borne  men  into  the  world  and  smiled  a  little, 
but  indeed  we've  got  to  bear  them  all  our  lives.  .  .  . 
A  woman  has  to  be  steadier  than  a  man  and  more  self- 
sacrificing  than  a  man,  because  when  she  plunges  she 
does  more  harm  than  a  man.  .  .  .  And  what  does  she 
achieve  if  she  does  plunge?  Nothing — nothing  worth 
counting.  Dresses  and  carpets  and  hangings  and 
pretty  arrangements,  excitements  and  satisfactions 
and  competition  and  more  excitements.  We  can't 
do  things.  We  don't  bring  things  off!  And  you, 
you  Monster !  you  Dream !  you  want  to  stick  your 
hand  out  of  all  that  is  and  make  something  that  isn't, 
begin  to  be!  That's  the  man " 

"  Dear  old  Madge !"  he  said,  "  there's  all  sorts  of 
women  and  all  sorts  of  men." 

"  Well,  our  sort  of  women,  then,  and  our  sort  of 


men." 


"  I  doubt  even  that." 

"  I  don't.  I've  found  my  place.  I've  been  making 
my  master  my  servant.  We  women — we've  been  loot- 
ing all  the  good  things  in  the  world,  and  helping 
nothing.  You've  carried  me  on  your  back  until  you 
are  loathing  life.  I've  been  making  you  fetch  and 
carry  for  me,  love  me,  dress  me,  keep  me  and  my  chil- 
dren, minister  to  my  vanities  and  greeds.  ...  No ; 
let  me  go  on.  I'm  so  penitent,  my  dear,  so  penitent  I 


490  MARRIAGE 

want  to  kneel  down  here  and  marry  you  all  over  again, 
heal  up  your  broken  life  and  begin  again."  ... 

She  paused. 

"  One  doesn't  begin  again,"  she  said.  "  But  I 
want  to  take  a  new  turn.  Dear,  you're  still  only  a 
young  man ;  we've  thirty  or  forty  years  before  us — 
forty  years  perhaps  or  more.  .  .  .  What  shall  we  do 
with  our  years?  We've  loved,  we've  got  children. 
What  remains  ?  Here  we  can  plan  it  out,  work  it  out, 
day  after  day.  What  shall  we  do  with  our  lives  and 
life?  Tell  me,  make  me  your  partner;  it's  you  who 
know,  what  are  we  doing  with  life  ?" 


§  13 

What  are  we  d'oing  with  life? 

That  question  overtakes  a  reluctant  and  fugitive 
humanity.  The  Traffords  were  but  two  of  a  great 
scattered  host  of  people,  who,  obeying  all  the  urgen- 
cies of  need  and  desire,  struggling,  loving,  begetting, 
enjoying,  do  nevertheless  find  themselves  at  last  un- 
satisfied. They  have  lived  the  round  of  experience, 
achieved  all  that  living  creatures  have  sought  since 
the  beginning  of  the  world — security  and  gratification 
and  offspring — and  they  find  themselves  still  strong, 
unsatiated,  with  power  in  their  hands  and  years  be- 
fore them,  empty  of  purpose.  What  are  they  to  do  ? 

The  world  presents  such  a  spectacle  of  evasion  as 
it  has  never  seen  before.  Never  was  there  such  a 
boiling  over  and  waste  of  vital  energy.  The  Sphinx 
of  our  opportunity  calls  for  the  uttermost  powers  of 
heart  and  brain  to  read  its  riddle — the  new,  astonish- 
ing riddle  of  excessive  power.  A  few  give  themselves 
to  those  honourable  adventures  that  extend  the  range 
of  man,  they  explore  untravelled  countries,  climb  re- 


LONELY  HUT  491 

mote  mountains,  conduct  researches,  risk  life  and  limb 
in  the  fantastic  experiments  of  flight,  and  a  mon- 
strous outpouring  of  labour  and  material  goes  on  in 
the  strenuous  preparation  for  needless  and  improb- 
able wars.  The  rest  divert  themselves  with  the  dwar- 
fish satisfactions  of  recognized  vice,  the  meagre  rou- 
tine of  pleasure,  or  still  more  timidly  with  sport  and 
games — those  new  unscheduled  perversions  of  the  soul. 

We  are  afraid  of  our  new  selves.  The  dawn  of 
human  opportunity  appals  us.  Few  of  us  dare  look 
upon  this  strange  light  of  freedom  and  limitless  re- 
sources that  breaks  upon  our  world. 

"Think,"  said  Trafford,  "while  we  sit  here  in 
this  dark  hut — think  of  the  surplus  life  that  wastes 
itself  in  the  world  for  sheer  lack  of  direction.  Away 
there  in  England — I  suppose  that  is  westward" — he 
pointed — "  there  are  thousands  of  men  going  out  to- 
day to  shoot.  Think  of  the  beautifully  made  guns, 
the  perfected  ammunition,  the  excellent  clothes,  the 
army  of  beaters,  the  carefully  preserved  woodland, 
the  admirable  science  of  it — all  for  that  idiot  mas- 
sacre of  half-tame  birds  !  Just  because  man  once  had 
need  to  be  a  hunter!  Think  of  the  others  again — 
golfing.  Think  of  the  big,  elaborate  houses  from 
which  they  come,  the  furnishings,  the  service.  And 
the  women — dressing!  Perpetually  dressing.  You, 
Marjorie — you've  done  nothing  but  dress  since  we 
married.  No,  let  me  abuse  you,  dear!  It's  insane, 
you  know!  You  dress  your  minds  a  little  to  talk 
amusingly,  you  spread  your  minds  out  to  back- 
grounds, to  households,  picturesque  and  delightful 
gardens,  nurseries.  Those  nurseries !  Think  of  our 
tremendously  cherished  and  educated  children!  And 
when  they  grow  up,  what  have  we  got  for  them?  A 
feast  of  futility.  .  .  ." 


492  MARRIAGE 


On  the  evening  of  the  day  when  Trafford  first 
tried  to  stand  upon  his  leg,  they  talked  far  into  the 
night.  It  had  been  a  great  and  eventful  day  for  them, 
full  of  laughter  and  exultation.  He  had  been  at  first 
ridiculously  afraid;  he  had  clung  to  her  almost  chil- 
dishly, and  she  had  held  him  about  the  body  with 
his  weight  on  her  strong  right  arm  and  his  right  arm 
in  her  left  hand,  concealing  her  own  dread  of  a  col- 
lapse under  a  mask  of  taunting  courage.  The  crutch 
had  proved  admirable.  "  It's  my  silly  knees  !"  Traf- 
ford kept  on  saying.  "  The  leg's  all  right,  but  I  get 
put  out  by  my  silly  knees." 

They  made  the  day  a  feast,  a  dinner  of  two  whole 
day's  rations  and  a  special  soup  instead  of  supper. 
"  The  birds  will  come,"  they  explained  to  each  other, 
"  ducks  and  geese,  long  before  May.  May,  you  know, 
is  the  latest." 

Marjorie  confessed  the  habit  of  sharing  his  pipe 
was  growing  on  her.  "  What  shall  we  do  in  Tybur^ 
nia!"  she  said,  and  left  it  to  the  imagination. 

"  If  ever  we  get  back;  there,"  he  said. 

"  I  don't  much  fancy  kicking  a  skirt  before  my 
shins  again  —  and  I'll  be  a  black,  coarse  woman  down 
to  my  neck  at  dinner  for  years  to  come  !  .  .  . 

Then,  as  he  lay  back  in  his  bunk  and  she  crammed 
the  stove  with  fresh  boughs  and  twigs  of  balsam  that 
filled  the  little  space  about  them  with  warmth  and 
with  a  faint,  sweet  smell  of  burning  and  with  flitting 
red  reflections,  he  took  up  a  talk  about  religion  they 
had  begun  some  days  before. 

"  You  see,"  he  said,  "  I've  always  believed  in 
Salvation.  I  suppose  a  man's  shy  of  saying  so  —  even 
to  his  wife.  But  I've  always  believed  more  or  less 
distinctly  that  there  was  something  up  to  which  a  life 


LONELY  HUT  493 

worked — always.  It's  been  rather  vague,  I'll  admit. 
I  don't  think  I've  ever  believed  in  individual  salvation. 
You  see,  I  feel  these  are  deep  things,  and  the  deeper 
one  gets  the  less  individual  one  becomes.  That's  why 
one  thinks  of  those  things  in  darkness » and  loneliness — 
and  finds  them  hard  to  tell.  One  has  an  individual 
voice,  or  an  individual  birthmark,  or  an  individualized 
old  hat,  but  the  soul — the  soul's  different.  ...  It 
isn't  me  talking  to  you  when  it  comes  to  that.  .  .  . 
This  question  of  what  we  are  doing  with  life  isn't  a 
question  to  begin  with  for  you  and  me  as  ourselves, 
but  for  you  and  me  as  mankind.  Am  I  spinnwig  it 
too  fine,  Madge?" 

"  No,"  she  said,  intent ;  "  go  on." 

"You  see,  when  we  talk  rations  here,  Marjorie, 
it's  ourselves,  but  when  we  talk  religion — it's  man- 
kind. You've  either!  got  to  be  Everyman  in  religion 
or  leave  it  alone.  That's  my  idea.  It's  no  more  pre- 
sumptuous to  think  for  the  race  than  it  is  for  a  beg- 
gar to  pray — though  that  means  going  right  up  to 
God  and  talking  to  Him.  Salvation's  a  collective 
thing  and  a  mystical  thing — or  there  isn't  any.  Fancy 
the  Almighty  and  me  sitting  up  and  keeping  Eternity 
together!  God  and  R.  A.  G.  Trafford,  F.R.S.— that's 
silly.  Fancy  a  man  in  number  seven  boots,  and  a 
tailor-made  suit  in  the  nineteen-fourteen  fashion,  sit- 
ting before  God!  That's  caricature.  But  God  ard 
Man!  That's  sense,  Marjorie."  .  .  . 

He  stopped  and  stared  at  her. 

Marjorie  sat  red-lit,  regarding  him.  "  Que-»r 
things  you  say !"  she  said.  "  So  much  of  this  I've 
never  thought  out.  I  wonder  why  I've  never  done  s^. 
.  .  .  Too  busy  with  many  things,  I  suppose.  But 
go  on  and  tell  me  more  of  these  secrets  you've  kept 
from  me !" 

"  Well,   we've    got    to    talk    of    these    things    s± 


494  MARRIAGE 

mankind — or  just  leave  them  alone,  and  shoot 
pheasants."  .  .  . 

"  If  I  could  shoot  a  pheasant  now !"  whispered 
Marjorie,  involuntarily. 

"  And  where  do,  we  stand  ?  What  do  we  need — 
I  mean  the  whole  race  of  us — kings  and  beggars 
together?  You  know,  Marjorie,  it's  this, — it's  Under- 
standing. That's  what  mankind  has  got  to,  the 
realization  that  it  doesn't  understand,  that  it  can't 
express,  that  it's  purblind.  We  haven't  got  eyes  for 
those  greater  things,  but  we've  got  the  promise — the 
intimation  of  eyes.  We've  come  out  of  an  unsuspect- 
ing darkness,  brute  animal  darkness,  not  into  sight, 
that's  been  the  mistake,  but  into  a  feeling  of  illumi- 
nation, into  a  feeling  of  light  shining  through  our 
opacity.  .  .  . 

"  I  feel  that  man  has  now  before  all  things  to 
know.  That's  his  supreme  duty,  to  feel,  realize,  see, 
understand,  express  himself  to  the  utmost  limits  of 
his  power." 

He  sat  up,  speaking  very  earnestly  to  her,  and  in 
that  flickering  light  she  realized  for  the  first  time  how 
thin  he  had  become,  how  bright  and  hollow  his  eyes, 
his  hair  was  long  over  his  eyes,  and  a  rough  beard 
flowed  down  to  his  chest.  "  All  the  religions,"  he 
said,  "all  the  philosophies,  have  pretended  to  achieve 
too  much.  We've  no  language  yet  for  religious  truth 
or  metaphysical  truth;  we've  no  basis  yet  broad 
enough  and  strong  enough  on  which  to  build.  Re- 
ligion and  philosophy  have  been  impudent  and  quack- 
ish — quackish!  They've  been  like  the  doctors,  who 
have  always  pretended  they  could  cure  since  the  be- 
ginning of  things,  cure  everything,  and  to  this  day 
even  they  haven't  got  more  than  the  beginnings  of 
knowledge  on  which  to  base  a  cure.  They've  lacked 
humility,  they've  lacked  the  honour  to  say  they  didn't 


LONELY  HUT  495 

know;  the  priests  took  things  of  wood  and  stone,  the 
philosophers  took  little  odd  arrangements  of  poor 
battered  words,  metaphors,  analogies,  abstractions, 
and  said:  "  That's  it!"  Think  of  their  silly  old  Ab- 
solute,— ab-solutus,  an  untied  parcel.  I  heard  Hal- 
dane  at  the  Aristotelian  once,  go  on  for  an  hour — 
no !  it  was  longer  than  an  hour — as  glib  and  slick  as 
a  well-oiled  sausage-machine,  about  the  different  sorts 
of  Absolute,  and  not  a  soul  of  us  laughed  out  at  him ! 
The  vanity  of  such  profundities !  They've  no  faith, 
faith  in  patience,  faith  to  wait  for  the  coming  of 
God.  And  since  we  don't  know  God,  since  we  don't 
know  His  will  with  us,  isn't  it  plain  that  all  our  lives 
should  be  a  search  for  Him  and  it?  Can  anything 
else  matter, — after  we  are  free  from  necessity?  That 
is  the  work  now  that  is  before  all  mankind,  to  attempt 
understanding — by  the  perpetual  finding  of  thought 
and  the  means  of  expression,  by  perpetual  extension 
and  refinement  of  science,  by  the  research  that  every 
artist  makes  for  beauty  and  significance  in  his  art, 
by  the  perpetual  testing  and  destruction  and  rebirth 
under  criticism  of  all  these  things,  and  by  a  perpetual 
extension  of  this  intensifying  wisdom  to  more  minds 
and  more  minds  and  more,  till  all  men  share  in  it,  and 
share  in  the  making  of  it.  ...  There  you  have  my 
creed,  Marjorie;  there  you  have  the  very  marrow  of 
me."  .  .  . 

He  became  silent. 

"Will  you  go  back  to  your  work?"  she  said, 
abruptly.  "  Go  back  to  your  laboratory?" 

He  stared  at  her  for  a  moment  without  speaking. 
"  Never,"  he  said  at  last. 

"  But,"  she  said,  and  the  word  dropped  from  her 
like  a  stone  that  falls  down  a  well.  .  .  . 

"  My  dear,"  he  said,  at  last,  "  I've  thought  of 
that.  But  since  I  left  that  dear,  dusty  little  labora- 
tory, and  all  those  exquisite  subtle  things — I've  lived. 


496  MARRIAGE 

I've  left  that  man  seven  long  years  behind  me.  Some 
other  man  must  go  on — I  think  some  younger  man — 
with  the  riddles  I  found  to  work  on  then.  I've  grown 
— into  something  different.  It  isn't  how  atoms  swing 
with  one  another,  or  why  they  build  themselves  up  so 
and  not  so,  that  matters  any  more  to  me.  I've  got 
you  and  all  the  world  in  which  we  live,  and  a  new  set 
of  riddles  filling  my  mind,  how  thought  swings  about 
thought,  how  one  man  attracts  his  fellows,  how  the 
waves  of  motive  and  conviction  sweep  through  a 
crowd  and  all  the  little  drifting  crystallizations  of 
spirit  with  spirit  and  all  the  repulsions  and  eddies 
and  difficulties,  that  one  can  catch  in  that  turbulent 
confusion.  I  want  to  do  a  new  sort  of  work  now  al- 
together. .  .  .  Life  has  swamped  me  once,  but  I 
don't  think  it  will  get  me  under  again; — I  want  to 
study  men." 

He  paused  and  she  waited,  with  a  face  aglow. 

"  I  want  to  go  back  td  watch  and  think — and  I 
suppose  write.  I  believe  I  shall  write  criticism.  But 
everything  that  matters  is  criticism!  ...  I  want  to 
get  into  contact  with  the  men  who  are  thinking.  I 
don't  mean  to  meet  them  necessarily,  but  to  get  into 
the  souls  of  their  books.  Every  writer  who  has  any- 
thing to  say,  every  artist  who  matters,  is  the  stronger 
for  every  man  or  woman  who  responds  to  him.  That's 
the  great  work — the  Reality.  I  want  to  become  a  part 
of  this  stuttering  attempt  to  express,  I  want  at  least 
to  resonate,  even  if  I  do  not  help.  .  .  .  And  you  with 
me,  Marjorie — you  with  me!  Everything  I  write  I 
want  you  to  see  and  think  about.  I  want  you  to  read 
as  I  read.  .  .  .  Now  after  so  long,  now  that,  now 
that  we've  begun  to  talk,  you  know,  talk  again— 

Something  stopped  his  voice.  Something  choked1 
them  both  into  silence.  He  held  out  a  lean  hand,  and 
she  shuffled  on  her  knees  to  take  it.  ... 


LONELY  HUT  497 

"  Don't  please  make  me,"  she  stumbled  through 
her  thoughts,  "  one  of  those  little  parasitic,  parrot- 
ing wives — don't  pretend  too  much  about  me — be- 
cause you  want  me  with  you .  Don't  forget  a 

woman  isn't  a  man." 

"  Old  Madge,"  he  said,  "  you  and  I  have  got  to 
march  together.  Didn't  I  love  you  from  the  first, 
from  that  time  when  I  was  a  boy  examiner  and  you 
were  a  candidate  girl — because  your  mind  was  clear?" 

"  And  we  will  go  back,"  she  whispered,  "  with  a 
work " 

"  With  a  purpose,"  he  said. 

She  disengaged  herself  from  his  arm,  and  sat  close 
to  him  upon  the  floor.  "  I  think  I  can  see  what  you 
will  do,"  she  said.  She  mused.  "  For  the  first  time 
I  begin  to  see  things  as  they  may  be  for  us.  I  begin 
to  see  a  life  ahead.  For  the  very  first  time." 

Queer  ideas  came  drifting  into  her  head.  Sud- 
denly she  cried  out  sharply  in  that  high  note  he 
loved.  "  Good  heavens !"  she  said.  "  The  absurdity ! 
The  infinite  absurdity!" 

"But  what?" 

"  I  might  have  married  Will  Magnet .   That's 

all." 

She  sprang  to  her  feet.  There  came  a  sound  of 
wind  outside,  a  shifting  of  snow  on  the  roof,  and  the 
door  creaked.  "  Half-past  eleven,"  she  exclaimed 
looking  at  the  watch  that  hung  in  the  light  of  the 
stove  door.  "  I  don't  want  to  sleep  yet ;  do  you  ? 
I'm  going  to  brew  some  tea — make  a  convivial  drink. 
And  then  we  will  go  on  talking.  It's  so  good  talking 
to  you.  So  good !  .  .  .  I've  an  idea !  Don't  you  think 
on  this  special  day,  it  might  run  to  a  biscuit?"  Her 
face  was  keenly  anxious.  He  nodded.  "  One  biscuit 
each,"  she  said,  trying  to  rob  her  voice  of  any  note  of 
criminality.  "  Just  one,  you  know,  won't  matter." 


498  MARRIAGE 

She  hovered  for  some  moments  close  to  the  stove 
before  she  went  into  the  arctic  corner  that  contained 
the  tin  of  tea.  "  If  we  can  really  live  like  that !"  she 
said.  "  When  we  are  home  again." 

"  Why  not  ?"  he  answered. 

She  made  no  answer,  but  went  across  for  the 
tea.  .  .  . 

He  turned  his  head  at  the  sound  of  the  biscuit 
tin  and  watched  her  put  out  the  precious  discs. 

"  I  shall  have  another  pipe,"  he  proclaimed,  with 
an  agreeable  note  of  excess.  "  Thank  heaven  for 
unstinted  tobacco.  ..." 

And  now  Marjorie's  mind  was  teeming  with 
thoughts  of  this  new  conception  of  a  life  lived  for 
understanding.  As  she  went  about  the  preparation  of 
the  tea,  her  vividly  concrete  imagination  was  active 
with  the  realization  of  the  life  they  would  lead  on 
their  return.  She  could  not  see  it  otherwise  than 
framed  in  a  tall,  fine  room,  a  study,  a  study  in  sombre 
tones,  with  high,  narrow,  tall,  dignified  bookshelves 
and  rich  deep  green  curtains  veiling  its  windows. 
There  should  be  a  fireplace  of  white  marble,  very 
plain  and  well  proportioned,  with  furnishings  of  old 
brass,  and  a  big  desk  towards  the  window  beautifully 
lit  by  electric  light,  with  abundant  space  for  papers 
to  lie.  And  she  wanted  some  touch  of  the  wilderness 
about  it ;  a  skin  perhaps.  .  .  . 

The  tea  was  still  infusing  when  she  had  deter- 
mined upon  an  enormous  paper-weight  of  that  irides- 
cent Labradorite  that  had  been  so  astonishing  a 
feature  of  the  Green  River  Valley.  She  would  have 
it  polished  on  one  side  only — the  other  should  be 
rough  to  show  the  felspar  in  its  natural  state.  .  .  . 

It  wasn't  that  she  didn't  feel  and  understand 
quite  fully  the  intention  and  significance  of  all  he  had 
said,  but  that  in  these  symbols  of  texture  and  equip- 


LONELY  HUT  499 

ment  her  mind  quite  naturally  clothed  itself.  And 
while  this  room  was  coming  into  anticipatory  being 
in  her  mind,  she  was  making  the  tea  very  deftly  and 
listening  to  Trafford's  every  word. 

§  15 

That  talk  marked  an  epoch  to  Marjorie.  From 
that  day  forth  her  imagination  began  to  shape  a 
new,  ordered  and  purposeful  life  for  Trafford  and 
herself  in  London,  a  life  not  altogether  divorced  from 
their  former  life,  but  with  a  faith  sustaining  it  and 
aims  controlling  it.  She  had  always  known  of  the 
breadth  and  power  of  his  mind,  but  now  as  he  talked 
of  what  he  might  do,  what  interests  might  converge 
and  give  results  through  him,  it  seemed  she  really 
knew  him  for  the  first  time.  In  his  former  researches, 
so  technical  and  withdrawn,  she  had  seen  little  of  his 
mind  in  action :  now  he  was  dealing  in  his  own  fashion 
with  things  she  could  clearly  understand.  There 
were  times  when  his  talk  affected  her  like  that  joy  of 
light  one  has  in  emerging  into  sunshine  from  a  long 
and  tedious  cave.  He  swept  things  together,  flashed 
unsuspected  correlations  upon  her  intelligence, 
smashed  and  scattered  absurd  yet  venerated  conven- 
tions of  thought,  made  undreamt-of  courses  of  action 
visible  in  a  flare  of  luminous  necessity.  And  she 
could  follow  him  and  help  him.  Just  as  she  had 
hampered  him  and  crippled  him,  so  now  she  could 
release  him — she  fondled  that  word.  She  found  a 
preposterous  image  in  her  mind  that  she  hid  like  a 
disgraceful  secret,  that  she  tried  to  forget,  and  yet 
its  stupendous,  its  dreamlike  absurdity  had  something 
in  it  that  shaped  her  delight  as  nothing  else  could  do ; 
she  was,  she  told  herself — hawking  with  an  arch- 
angel! .  .  . 


500  MARRIAGE 

These  were  her  moods  of  exaltation.  And  she 
Was  sure  she  had  never  loved  her  man  before,  that 
this  was  indeed  her  beginning.  It  was  as  if  she  had 
just  found  him.  .  .  . 

Perhaps,  she  thought,  true  lovers  keep  on  finding 
each  other  all  through  their  lives. 

And  he  too  had  discovered  her.  All  the  host  of 
Marjories  he  had  known,  the  shining,  delightful, 
seductive,  wilful,  perplexing  aspects  that  had  so 
filled  her  life,  gave  place  altogether  for  a  time  to 
this  steady-eyed  woman,  lean  and  warm-wrapped  with 
the  valiant  heart  and  the  frost-roughened  skin.  What 
a  fine,  strong,  ruddy  thing  she  was !  How  glad  he  was 
for  this  wild  adventure  in  the  wilderness,  if  only  be- 
cause it  had  made  him  lie  among  the  rocks  and  think 
of  her  and  wait  for  her  and  despair  of  her  life  and 
God,  and  at  last  see  her  coming  back  to  him,  flushed 
withl  effort  and  calling  his  name  to  him  out  of  that 
whirlwind  of  snow.  .  .  .  And  there  was  at  least  one 
old  memory  mixed  up  with  all  these  new  and  over- 
mastering impressions,  the  memory  of  her  clear  un- 
hesitating voice  as  it  had  stabbed  into  his  life  again 
long  years  ago,  minute  and  bright  in  the  telephone: 
"  It's  me,  you  know.  It's  Marjorie!" 

Perhaps  after  all  she  had  not  wasted  a  moment  of 
his  life,  perhaps  every  issue  between  them  had  been 
necessary,  and  it  was  good  altogether  to  be  turned 
from  the  study  of  crystals  to  the  study  of  men  and 
women.  .  .  . 

And  now  both  their  minds  were  Londonward, 
where  all  the  tides  and  driftage  and  currents  of  hu- 
man thought  still  meet  and  swirl  together.  They 
were  full  of  what  they  would  do  when  they  got  back. 
Marjorie  sketched  that  study  to  him — in  general 
terms  and  without  the  paper-weight — and  began  to 
shape  the  world  she  would  have  about  it.  She  meant 


LONELY  HUT  501 

to  be  his  squaw  and  body-servant  first  of  all,  and  then 
— a  mother.  Children,  she  said,  are  none  the  worse 
for  being  kept  a  little  out  of  focus.  And  he  was 
rapidly  planning  out  his  approach  to  the  new  ques- 
tions to  which  he  was  now  to  devote  his  life.  "  One 
wants  something  to  hold  the  work  together,"  he  said, 
and  projected  a  book.  "  One  cannot  struggle  at 
large  for  plain  statement  and  copious  and  free  and 
courageous  statement,  one  needs  a  positive  attack." 

He  designed  a  book,  which  he  might  write  if  only 
for  the  definition  it  would  give  him  and  with  no 
ultimate  publication,  which  was  to  be  called :  "  The 
Limits  of  Language  as  a  Means  of  Expression."  .  .  . 
It  was  to  be  a  pragmatist  essay,  a  sustained  attempt 
to  undermine  the  confidence  of  all  that  scholasticism 
and  logic  chopping  which  still  lingers  like  the  sequelce 
of  a  disease  in  our  University  philosophy.  "  Those 
duffers  sit  in  their  studies  and  make  a  sort  of  tea  of 
dry  old  words — and  think  they're  distilling  the  spirit 
of  wisdom,"  he  said. 

He  proliferated  titles  for  a  time,  and  settled  at 
last  on  "  From  Realism  to  Reality."  He  wanted  to  get 
at  that  at  once ;  it  fretted  him  to  have  to  hang  in  the 
air,  day  by  day,  for  want  of  books  to  quote  and  op- 
ponents to  lance  and  confute.  And  he  wanted  to  see 
pictures  too  and  plays,  read  novels  he  had  heard 
of  and  never  read,  in  order  to  verify  or  cor- 
rect the  ideas  that  were  seething  in  his  mind  about 
the  qualities  of  artistic  expression.  His  thought  had 
come  out  to  a  conviction  that  the  line  to  wider  human 
understandings  lies  through  a  huge  criticism  and 
cleaning  up  of  the  existing  methods  of  formulation, 
as  a  preliminary  to  the  wider  and  freer  discussion  of 
those  religious  and  social  issues  our  generation  still 
shrinks  from.  "  It's  grotesque,"  he  said,  "  and  utter- 
ly true  that  the  sanity  and  happiness  of  all  the  world 


502  MARRIAGE 

lies  in  its  habits  of  generalization."  There  was  not 
even  paper  for  him  to  make  notes  or  provisional  drafts 
of  the  new  work.  He  hobbled  about  the  camp  fretting 
at  these  deprivations. 

"  Marjorie,"  he  said,  "  we've  done  our  job.  Why 
should  we  wait  here  on  this  frosty  shelf  outside  the 
world?  My  leg's  getting  sounder  —  if  it  wasn't  for 
that  feeling  of  ice  in  it.  Why  shouldn't  we  make 
another  sledge  from  the  other  bunk  and  start  down  — 

"  To  Hammond?" 

"Why  not?" 

"But  the  way?" 

"  The  valley  would  guide  us.  We  could  do  four 
hours  a  day  before  we  had  to  camp.  I'm  not  sure  we 
couldn't  try  the  river.  We  could  drag  and  carry  all 
our  food.  ..." 

She  looked  down  the  wide  stretches  of  the  valley. 
There  was  the  hill  they  had  christened  Marjorie 
Ridge.  At  least  it  was  familiar.  Every  night  before 
nightfall  if  they  started  there  would  be  a  fresh  camp- 
ing place  to  seek  among  the  snow-drifts,  a  great  heap 
of  wood  to  cut  to  last  the  night.  Suppose  his  leg 
gave  out  —  when  they  were  already  some  days  away, 
so  that  he  could  no  longer  go  on  or  she  drag  him 
back  to  the  stores.  Plainly  there  would  be  nothing 
for  it  then  but  to  lie  down  and  die  together.  .  .  . 

And  a  sort  of  weariness  had  come  to  her  as  a 
consequence  of  two  months  of  half-starved  days,  not 
perhaps  a  failure  so  much  as  a  reluctance  of  spirit. 

"  Of  course,"  she  said,  with  a  new  aspect  drifting 
before  her  mind,  "  then  —  we  could  eat.  We  could 
feed  up  before  we  started.  We  could  feast  almost  !" 


"  While  you  were  asleep  the  other  night,"  Traf- 
ford  began  one  day  as  they  sat  spinning  out  their 


LONELY  HUT  508 

mid-day  meal,  "  I  was  thinking  how  badly  I  had  ex- 
pressed myself  when  I  talked  to  you  the  other  day, 
and  what  a  queer,  thin  affair  I  made  of  the  plans  I 
wanted  to  carry  out.  As  a  matter  of  fact,  they're 
neither  queer  nor  thin,  but  they  are?  unreal  in  com- 
parison with  the  common  things  of  everyday  life, 
hunger,  anger,  all  the  immediate  desires.  They  must  be. 
They  only  begin  when  those  others  are  at  peace.  It's 
hard  to  set  out  these  things ;  they're  complicated  and 
subtle,  and  one  cannot  simplify  without  falsehood.  I 
don't  want  to  simplify.  The  world  has  gone  out  of 
its  way  time  after  time  through  simplifications  and 
short  cuts.  Save  us  from  epigrams !  And  when  one 
thinks  over  what  one  has  said,  at  a  little  distance, — 
one  wants  to  go  back  to  it,  and  say  it  all  again.  I 
seem  to  be  not  so  much  thinking  things  out  as  reviv- 
ing and  developing  things  I've  had  growing  in  my 
mind  ever  since  we  met.  It's  as  though  an  immense 
reservoir  of  thought  had  filled  up  in  my  mind  at  last 
and  was  beginning  to  trickle  over  and  break  down 
the  embankment  between  us.  This  conflict  that  has 
been  going  on  between  our  life  together  and  my — my 
intellectual  life;  it's  only  just  growing  clear  in  my 
own  mind.  Yet  it's  just  as  if  one  turned  up  a  light 
on  something  that  had  always  been  there.  .  .  . 

"  It's  a  most  extraordinary  thing  to  think  out, 
Marjorie,  that  antagonism.  Our  love  has  kept  us  so 
close  together  and  always  our  purposes  have  been — 
like  that."  He  spread  divergent  hands.  "I've  specu- 
lated again  and  again  whether  there  isn't  something 
incurably  antagonistic  between  women  (that's  you 
generalized,  Marjorie)  and  men  (that's  me)  directly 
we  pass,  beyond  the  conditions  of  the  individualistic 
struggle.  I  believe  every  couple  of  lovers  who've  ever 
married  have  felt  that  strain.  Yet  it's  not  a  differ- 
ence in  kind  between  us  but  degree.  The  big  conflict 


504  MARRIAGE 

between  us  has  a  parallel  in  a  little  internal  conflict 
that  goes  on;  there's  something  of  man  in  every 
woman  and  a  touch  of  the  feminine  in  every  man. 
But  you're  nearer  as  woman  to  the  immediate  per- 
sonal life  of  sense  and  realty  than  I  am  as  man.  It's 
been  so  ever  since  the  men  went  hunting  and  fighting 
and  the  women  kept  hut,  tended  the  children  and 
gathered  roots  in  the  little  cultivation  close  at  hand. 
It's  been  so  perhaps  since  the  female  carried  and 
suckled  her  child  and  distinguished  one  male  from 
another.  It  may  be  it  will  always  be  so.  Men  were 
released  from  that  close,  continuous  touch  with  phy- 
sical necessities  long  before  women  were.  It's  only 
now  that  women  begin  to  be  released.  For  ages  now 
men  have  been  wandering  from  field  and  home  and 
city,  over  the  hills  and  far  away,  in  search  of  ad- 
ventures and  fresh  ideas  and  the  wells  of  mystery 
beyond  the  edge  of  the  world,  but  it's  only  now  that 
the  woman  comes  with  them  too.  Our  difference  isn't 
a  difference  in  kind,  old  Marjorie;  it's  the  difference 
between  the  old  adventurer  and  the  new  feet  upon  the 
trail." 

"  We've  got  to  come,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Oh !  you've  got  to  come.  No  good  to  be  pio- 
neers if  the  race  does  not  follow.  The  women  are  the 
backbone  of  the  race;  the  men  are  just  the  individ- 
uals. Into  this  Labrador  and  into  all  the  wild  and 
desolate  places  of  thought  and  desire,  if  men  come 
you  women  have  to  come  too — and  bring  the  race 
with  you.  Some  day." 

"  A  long  day,  mate  of  my  heart." 

"  Who  knows  how  long  or  how  far?  Aren't  you 
at  any  rate  here,  dear  woman  of  mine.  .  .  .  {Surely 
you  are  here).99 

He  went  off  at  a  tangent.  "  There's  all  those 
words  that  seem  to  mean  something  and  then  don't 


LONELY  HUT  505 

seem  to  mean  anything,  that  keep  shifting  to  and 
fro  from  the  deepest  significance  to  the  shallowest  of 
claptrap,  Socialism,  Christianity.  .  .  .  You  know, 
— they  aren't  anything  really,  as  yet ;  they  are  some- 
thing trying  to  be.  ...  Haven't  I  said  that  before, 
Marjorie?" 

She  looked  round  at  him.  "  You  said  something 
like  that  when  you  were  delirious,"  she  answered, 
after  a  little  pause.  "  It's  one  of  the  ideas  that  you're 
struggling  with.  You  go  on,  old  man,  and  talk. 
We've  months — for  repetitions." 

"  Well,  I  mean  that  all  these  things  are  seeking 
after  a  sort  of  co-operation  that's  greater  than  our 
power  even  of  imaginative  realization ;  that's  what  I 
mean.  The  kingdom  of  Heaven,  the  communion  of 
saints,  the  fellowship  of  men;  these  are  things  like 
high  peaks  far  out  of  the  common  life  of  every  day, 
shining  things  that  madden  certain  sorts  of  men  to 
climb.  Certain  sorts  of  us !  I'm  a  religious  man,  I'm 
a  socialistic  man.  These  calls  are  more  to  me  than  my 
daily  bread.  I've  got  something  in  me  more  general- 
izing than  most  men.  I'm  more  so  than  many  other 
men  and  most  other  women,  I'm  more  socialistic  than 
you.  ..." 

"You  know,  Marjorie,  I've  always  felt  you're  a 
finer  individual  than  me,  I've  never  had  a  doubt  of  it. 
You're  more  beautiful  by  far  than  I,  woman  for  my 
man.  You've  a  keener  appetite  for  things,  a  firmer 
grip  on  the  substance  of  life.  I  love  to  see  you  do 
things,  love  to  see  you  move,  love  to  watch  your 
hands ;  you've  cleverer  hands  than  mine  by  far.  .  .  . 
And  yet — I'm  a  deeper  and  bigger  thing  than  you. 
I  reach  up  to  something  you  don't  reach  up  to.  ... 
You're  in  life — and  I'm  a  little  out  of  it,  I'm  like 
one  of  those  fish  that  began  to  be  amphibian^  I  go  out 
into  something  where  you  don't  follow — where  you 
hardly  begin  to  follow 


506  MARRIAGE 

That's  the  real  perplexity  between  thousands  of 
men  and  women.  .  .  . 

"  It  seems  to  me  that  the  primitive  socialism  of 
Christianity  and  all  the  stuff  of  modern  socialism 
that  matters  is  really  aiming — almost  unconsciously, 
I  admit  at  times — at  one  simple  end,  at  the  release 
of  the  human  spirit  from  the  individualistic  strug- 
gle  

"  You  used  '  release'  the  other  day,  Marjorie?  Of 
course,  I  remember.  It's  queer  how  I  go  on  talking 
after  you  have  understood." 

"  It  was  just  a  flash,"  said  Marjorie.  "  We 
have  intimations.  Neither  of  us  really  understands. 
[We're  like  people  climbing  a  mountain  in  a  mist, 
that  thins  out  for  a  moment  and  shows  valleys  and 
cities,  and  then  closes  in  again,  before  we  can  recog- 
nize them  or  make  out  where  we  are." 

Trafford  thought.  "When  I  talk  to  you,  I've 
always  felt  I  mustn't  be  too  vague.  And  the  very 
essence  of  all  this  is  a  vague  thing,  something  we 
shall  never  come  nearer  to  it  in  all  our  lives  than  to  see 
it  as  a  shadow  and  a  glittering  that  escapes  again  into 
a  mist.  .  .  .  And  yet}  it's  everything  that  matters, 
everything,  the  only  thing  that  matters  truly  and  for 
ever  through  the  whole  range  of  life.  And  we  have 
to  serve  it  with  the  keenest  thought,  the  utmost  pa- 
tience, inordinate  veracity.  .  .  . 

"  The  practical  trouble  between  your  sort  and 
my  sort,  Marjorie,  is  the  trouble  between  faith  and 
realization.  You  demand  the  outcome.  Oh!  and  I 
hate  to  turn  aside  and  realize.  I've  had  to  do  it  for 
seven  years.  Damnable  years !  Men  of  my  sort  want 
to  understand.  We  want  to  understand,  and  you  ask 
us  to  make.  We  want  to  understand  atoms,  ions, 
molecules,  refractions.  You  ask  us  to  make  rubber 
and  diamonds.  I  suppose  it's  right  that  incidentally 


LONELY  HUT  507 

we  should  make  rubber  and  diamonds.  Finally,  I 
warn  you,  we  will  make  rubber  unnecessary  and 
diamonds  valueless.  And  again  we  want  to  under- 
stand how  people  react  upon  one  another  to  produce 
social  consequences,  and  you  ask  us  to  put  it  at  once 
into  a  draft  bill  for  the  reform  of  something  or 
other.  I  suppose  life  lies  between  us  somewhere, 
we're  the  two  poles  of  truth  seeking  and  truth  get- 
ting ;  with  me  alone  it  would  be  nothing  but  a  lumin- 
ous dream,  with  you  nothing  but  a  scramble  in  which 
sooner  or  later  all  the  lamps  would  be  upset.  .  .  . 
But  it's  ever  too  much  of  a  scramble  yet,  and  ever 
too  little  of  a  dream.  All  our  world  over  there  is 
full  of  the  confusion  and  wreckage  of  premature 
realizations.  There's  no  real  faith  in  thought  and 
knowledge  yet.  Old  necessity  has  driven  men  so  hard 
that  they  still  rush  with  a  wild  urgency — though  she 
goads  no  more.  Greed  and  haste,  and  if,  indeed,  we 
seem  to  have  a  moment's  breathing  space,  then  the 
Gawdsaker  tramples  us  under." 

"My  dear!"  cried  Marjorie,  with  a  sharp  note 
of  amusement.  "  What  is  a  Gawdsaker?" 

"  Oh,"  said  Trafford,  "  haven't  you  heard  that 
before?  He's  the  person  who  gets  excited  by  any 
deliberate  discussion  and  gets  up  wringing  his  hands 
and  screaming,  '  For  Gawd's  sake,  let's  do  something 
now!9  I  think  they  used  it  first  for  Pethick  Lawrence, 
that  man  who  did  so  much  to  run  the  old  militant 
suffragettes  and  burke  the  proper  discussion  of 
woman's  future.  You  know.  You  used  to  have  'em 
in  Chelsea — with  their  hats.  Oh !  *  Gawdsaking'  is 
the  curse  of  all  progress,  the  hectic  consumption  that 
kills  a  thousand  good  beginnings.  You  see  it  in 
small  things  and  in  great.  You  see  it  in  my  life; 
Gawdsaking  turned  my  life-work  to  cash  and  promo- 
tions, Gawdsaking Look  at  the  way  the  aviators 


508  MARRIAGE 

took  to  flying  for  prizes  and  gate-money,  the  way 
pure  research  is  swamped1  by  endowments  for  tech- 
nical applications!  Then  that  poor  ghost-giant  of 
an  idea  the  socialists  have; — it's  been  treated  like 
one  of  those  unborn  lambs  they  kill  for  the  fine  skin 
of  it,  made  into  results  before  ever  it  was  alive. 
Was  there  anything  more  pitiful?  The  first  great 
dream  and  then  the  last  phase!  when  your  Aunt 
Plessington  and  the  district  visitors  took  and  used 
it  as  a  synonym  for  Payment  in  Kind.  .  .  .  It's  na- 
tural, I  suppose,  for  people  to  be  eager  for  results, 
personal  and  immediate  results — the  last  lesson  of 
life  is  patience.  Naturally  they  want  reality,  na- 
turally! They  want  the  individual  life,  something 
to  handle  and  feel  and  use  and  live  by,  something  of 
their  very  own  before  they  die,  and  they  want  it 
now.  But  the  thing  that  matters  for  the  race,  Mar- 
jorie,  is  a  very  different  thing;  it  is  to  get  the  emerg- 
ing thought  process  clear  and  to  keep  it  clear — and 
to  let  those  other  hungers  go.  We've  got  to  go  back 
to  England  on  the  side  of  that  delay,  that  arrest  of 
interruption,  that  detached,  observant,  synthesizing 
process  of  the  mind,  that  solvent  of  difficulties 
and  obsolescent  institutions,  which  is  the  reality  of 
collective  human  life.  We've  got  to  go  back  on  the 
side  of  pure  science — literature  untrammeled  by  the 
preconceptions  of  the  social  schemers — art  free  from 
the  urgency  of  immediate  utility — and  a  new,  a  regal, 
a  god-like  sincerity  in  philosophy.  And,  above  all, 
we've  got  to  stop  this  Jackdaw  buying  of  yours,  my 
dear,  which  is  the  essence  of  all  that  is  wrong  with  the 
world,  this  snatching  at  everything,  which  loses  every- 
thing worth  having  in  life,  this  greedy  confused 
realization  of  our  accumulated  resources !  You're 
going  to  be  a  non-shopping  woman  now.  You're  to 
come  out  of  Bond  Street,  you  and  your  kind,  like 


LONELY  HUT  509 

Israel  leaving  the  Egyptian  flesh-pots.  You're  going 
to  be  my  wife  and  my  mate.  .  .  .  Less  of  this  service 
of  things.  Investments  in  comfort,  in  security,  in 
experience,  yes ;  but  not  just  spending  any  more.  .  .  ." 

He  broke  off  abruptly  with :  "  I  want  to  go  back 
and  begin." 

"Yes,"  said  Marjorie,  "we  will  go  back,"  and 
saw  minutely  and  distantly,  and  yet  as  clearly  and 
brightly  as  if  she  looked  into  a  concave  mirror,  that 
tall  and  dignified  study,  a  very  high  room  indeed, 
with  a  man  writing  before  a  fine,  long-curtained 
window  and  a  greal  lump  of  rich-glowing  Labradorite 
upon  his  desk  before  him  holding  together  an  accu- 
mulation of  written  sheets.  .  .  . 

She  knew  exactly  the  shop  in  Oxford  Street  where 
the  stuff  for  the  curtains  might  be  best  obtained. 

§  17 

One  night  Marjorie  had  been  sitting  musing  be- 
fore the  stove  for  a  long  time,  and  suddenly  she  said: 
"  I  wonder  if  we  shall  fail.  I  wonder  if  we  shall  get 
into  a  mess  again  when  we  are  back  in  London.  .  .  . 
As  big  a  mess  and  as  utter  a  discontent  as  sent  us 
here.  ..." 

Trafford  was  scraping  out  his  pipe,  and  did  not 
answer  for  some  moments.  Then  he  remarked :  "  What 
nonsense !" 

"  But  we  shall,"  she  said.  "  Everybody  fails.  To 
some  extent,  we  are  bound  to  fail.  Because  indeed 
nothing  is  clear;  nothing  is  a  clear  issue.  .  .  .  You 
know — I'm  just  the  old  Marjorie  really  in  spite  of 
all  these  resolutions — the  spendthrift,  the  restless, 
the  eager.  I'm  a  born  snatcher  and  shopper.  We're 
just  the  same  people  really." 

"No,"  he  said,  after  thought  "You're  all 
Labrador  older." 


510  MARRIAGE 

"  I  always  have  failed,"  she  considered,  "  when  it 
came  to  any  special  temptations,  Rag.  I  can't  stand 
not  having  a  thing!" 

He  made  no  answer. 

"  And  you're  still  the  same  old  Rag,  you  know," 
she  went  on.  "  Who  weakens  into  kindness  if  I  cry. 
Who  likes  me  well-dressed.  Who  couldn't  endure  to 
see  me  poor." 

"  Not  a  bit  of  it.  No !  I'm  a  very  different  Rag 
with  a  very  different  Marjorie.  Yes  indeed!  Things 
— are  graver.  Why ! — I'm  lame  for  life — and  I've  a 
scar.  The  very  look  of  things  is  changed.  ..."  He 
stared  at  her  face  and  said :  "  You've  hidden  the 
looking-glass  and  you  think  I  haven't  noted  it " 

"  It  keeps  on  healing,"  she  interrupted.  "  And  if 
it  comes  to  that — where's  my  complexion?"  She 
laughed.  "  These  are  just  the  superficial  aspects  of 
the  case." 

"  Nothing  ever  heals  completely,"  h«  said,  an- 
swering her  first  sentence,  "  and  nothing  ever  goes 
back  to  the  exact  place  it  held  before.  We  are  differ- 
ent, you  sun-bitten,  frost-bitten  wife  of  mine."  .  .  . 

"  Character  is  character,"  said  Marjorie,  coming 
back  to  her  point.  "  Don't  exaggerate  conversion, 
dear.  It's  not  a  bit  of  good  pretending  we  shan't 
fall  away,  both  of  us.  Each  in  our  own  manner.  We 
shall.  We  shall,  old  man.  London  is  still  a  tempting 
and  confusing  place,  and  you  can't  alter  people  fun- 
damentally, not  even  by  half-freezing  and  half- 
starving  them.  You  only  alter  people  fundamentally 
by  killing  them  and  replacing  them.  I  shall  be  ex- 
travagant again  and  forget  again,  try  as  I  may, 
and  you  will  work  again  and  fall  away  again  and  for- 
give me  again.  You  know It's  just  as  though 

we  were  each  of  us  not  one  person,  but  a  lot  of  per- 
sons, who  sometimes  meet  and  shout  all  together,  and 


LONELY  HUT  511 

then  disperse  and  forget  and  plot  against  each 
other.  ..." 

"  Oh,  things  will  happen  again,"  said  Trafford, 
in  her  pause.  "  But  they  wll  happen  again  with  a 
difference — after  this.  With  a  difference.  That's 
the  good  of  it  all.  .  .  .  We've  found  something  here — 
that  makes  everything  different.  .  .  .  We've  found 
each  other,  too,  dear  wife." 

She  thought  intently. 

"  I  am  afraid,"  she  whispered. 

"  But  what  is?  there  to  be  afraid  of?" 

"  Myself." 

She  spoke  after  a  little  pause  that  seemed  to  hesi- 
tate. "  At  times  I  wish — oh,  passionately ! — that  I 
could  pray." 

"Why  don't  you?" 

"  I  don't  believe  enough — in  that.     I  wish  I  did." 

Trafford  thought.  "  People  are  always  so  exact- 
ing about  prayer,"  he  said. 

"  Exacting." 

"  You  want  to  pray — and  you  can't  make  terms 
for  a  thing  you  want.  I  used  to  think  I  could.  I 
wanted  God  to  come  and  demonstrate  a  bit.  .  .  .  It's 
no  good,  Madge.  ...  If  God  chooses  to  be  silent — 
you  must  pray  to  the  silence.  If  he  chooses  to  live  in 
darkness,  you  must  pray  to  the  night.  ..." 

"  Yes,"  said  Marjorie,  "  I  suppose  one  must." 

She  thought.  "  I  suppose  in  the  end  one  does," 
she  said.  .  .  . 

§  18 

Mixed  up  with  this  entirely  characteristic  theol- 
ogy of  theirs  and  their  elaborate  planning-out  of  a 
new  life  in  London  were  other  strands  of  thought. 
Queer  memories  of  London  and  old  times  together 


512  MARRIAGE 

would  flash  with  a  peculiar  brightness  across  their 
contemplation  of  the  infinities  and  the  needs  of  man- 
kind. Out  of  nowhere,  quite  disconnectedly,  would 
come  the  human,  finite:  "Do  you  remember ?" 

Two  things  particularly  pressed  into  their  minds. 
One  was  the  thought  of  their  children,  and  I  do  not 
care  to  tell  how  often  in  the  day  now  they  calculated 
the  time  in  England,  and  tried  to  guess  to  a  half  mile 
or  soi  where  those  young  people  might  be  and  what 
they  might  be  doing.  "  The  shops  are  bright  for 
Christmas  now,"  said  Marjorie.  "  This  year  Dick 
was  to  have  had  his  first  fireworks.  I  wonder  if  he 
did.  I  wonder  if  he  burnt  his  dear  little  funny  stumps 
of  fingers.  I  hope  not." 

"  Oh,  just  a  little,"  said  Traiford.  "  I  remember 
how  a  squib  made  my  glove  smoulder  and  singed 
me,  and  how  my  mother  kissed  me  for  taking  it  like  a 
man.  It  was  the  best  part  of  the  adventure." 

"  Dick  shall  burn  his  fingers  when  his  mother's 
home  to  kiss  him.  But  spare  his  fingers  now, 
Dadda.  ..." 

The  other  topic  was  food. 

It  was  only  after  they  had  been  doing  it  for  a 
week  or  so  that  they  remarked  how  steadily  they 
gravitated  to  reminiscences,  suggestions,  descriptions 
and  long  discussions  of  eatables — sound,  solid  eat- 
ables. They  told  over  the  particulars  of  dinners 
they  had  imagined  altogether  forgotten ;  neither  hosts 
nor  conversations  seemed  to  matter  now  in  the  slight- 
est degree,  but  every  item  in  the  menu  had  its  place. 
They  nearly  quarrelled  one  day  about  hors-d'oeuvre. 
Trafford  wanted  to  dwell  on  them  when  Marjorie 
was  eager  for  the  soup. 

"  It's  niggling  with  food,"  said  Marjorie. 

"  Oh,  but  there's  no  reason,"  said  Trafford,  "  why 
you  shouldn't  take  a  lot  of  hors-d'oeuvre.  Three  or 


LONELY  HUT  518 

four  sardines,  and  potato  salad  and  a  big  piece  of 
smoked  salmon,  and  some  of  that  Norwegian  herring, 
and  so  on,  and  keep  the  olives  by  you  to  pick  at.  It's 
a  beginning." 

"  It's — it's  immoral,"  said  Marjorie,  "  that's 
what  I  feel.  If  one  needs  a  whet  to  eat,  one  shouldn't 
eat.  The  proper  beginning  of  a  dinner  is  soup — 
good,  hot,  rich  soup.  Thick  soup — with  things  in  it, 
vegetables  and  meat  and  things.  Bits  of  oxtail." 

"  Not  peas." 

"  No,  not  peas.  Pea-soup  is  tiresome.  I  never 
knew  anything  one  tired  of  so  soon.  I  wish  we  hadn't 
relied  on  it  so  much." 

"  Thick  soup's  all  very  well,"  said  Traif  ord,  "  but 
how  about  that  clear  stuff  they  give  you  in  the  little 
pavement  restaurants  in  Paris.  You  know — Croute- 
au-pot,  with  lovely  great  crusts  and  big  leeks  and 
lettuce  leaves  and  so  on!  Tremendous  aroma  of 
onions,  and  beautiful  little  beads  of  fat!  And  being 
a  clear  soup,  you  see  what  there  is.  That's — inter- 
esting. Twenty-five  centimes,  Marjorie.  Lord!  I'd 
give  a  guinea  a  plate  for  it.  I'd  give  five  pounds  for 
one  of  those  jolly  white-metal  tureens  full — you 
know,  full,  with  little  drops  all  over  the  outside  of  it, 
and  the  ladle  sticking  out  under  the  lid." 

"  Have  you  ever  tasted  turtle  soup  ?" 

"  Rather.  They  give  it  you  in  the  City.  The 
fat's — ripping.  But  they're  rather  precious  with  it, 
you  know.  For  my  own  part,  I  don't  think  soup 
should  be  doled  out.  I  always  liked  the  soup  we  used 
to  get  at  the  Harts';  but  then  they  never  give  you 
enough,  you  know — not  nearly  enough." 

"  About  a  tablespoon ful,"  said  Marjorie.  "  It's 
mocking  an  appetite." 

"  Still  there's  things  to  follow,"  said  Trafford 

They  discussed  the  proper  order  of  a  dinner  very 


514  MARRIAGE 

carefully.  They  decided  that  sorbets  and  ices  were 
not  only  unwholesome,  but  nasty.  "  In  London," 
said  Trafford,  "  one's  taste  gets — vitiated."  .  .  . 

They  weighed  the  merits  of  French  cookery,  mod- 
ern international  cookery,  and  produced  alternatives. 
Trafford  became  very  eloquent  about  old  English 
food.  "  Dinners,"  said  Trafford,  "  should  be  feast- 
ing, not  the  mere  satisfaction  of  a  necessity.  There 
should  be — amplitude.  I  remember  a  recipe  for  a 
pie;  I  think  it  was  in  one  of  those  books  that  man 
Lucas  used  to  compile.  If  I  remember  rightly,  it 
began  with:  '  Take  a  swine  and  hew  it  into  gobbets.' 
Gobbets !  That's  something  like  a  beginning.  It  was 
a  big  pie  with  tiers  and  tiers  of  things,  and  it  kept  it 
up  all  the  way  in  that  key.  .  .  .  And  then  what  could 
be  better  than  prime  British-fed  roast  beef,  reddish, 
just  a  shade  on  the  side  of  underdone,  and  not  too 
finely  cut.  Mutton  can't  touch  it." 

"  Beef  is  the  best,"  she  said. 

"  Then  our  English  cold  meat  again.  What  can 
equal  it?  Such  stuff  as  they  give  in  a  good  country 
inn,  a  huge  joint  of  beef — you  cut  from  it  yourself, 
you  know  as  much  as  you  like — with  mustard,  pickles, 
celery,  a  tankard  of  stout,  let  us  say.  Pressed  beef, 
such  as  they'll  give  you  at  the  Reform,  too,  that's 
good  eating  for  a  man.  With  chutney,  and  then  old 
cheese  to  follow.  And  boiled  beef,  with  little  carrots 
and  turnips  and  a  dumpling  or  so.  Eh?" 

"  Of  course,"  said  Marjorie,  "  one  must  do  jus- 
tice to  a  well-chosen  turkey,  a  fat  turkey." 

"  Or  a  good  goose,  for  the  matter  of  that — with 
honest,  well-thought-out  stuffing.  I  like  the  little 
sausages  round  the  dish  of  a  turkey,  too ;  like  cherubs 
they  are,  round  the  feet  of  a  Madonna.  .  .  .  There's 
much  to  be  said  for  sausage,  Marjorie.  It  concen- 
trates," 


LONELY  HUT  515 

Sausage  led  to  Germany.  "  I'm  not  one  of  those 
patriots,"  he  was  saying  presently,  "  who  run  down 
other  countries  by  way  of  glorifying  their  own.  While 
I  was  in  Germany  I  tasted  many  good  things.  There's 
their  Leberwurst ;  it's  never  bad,  and,  at  its  best,  it's 
splendid.  It's  only  a  fool  would  reproach  Germany 
with  sausage.  Devonshire  black-pudding,  of  course, 
is  the  master  of  any  Blutwurst,  but  there's  all  those 
others  on  the  German  side,  Frankfurter,  big  reddish 
sausage  stuff  again  with  great  crystalline  lumps  of 
white  fat.  And  how  well  they  cook  their  rich  hashes, 
and  the  thick  gravies  they  make.  Curious,  how  much 
better  the  cooking  of  Teutonic  peoples  is  than  the 
cooking  of  the  South  Europeans !  It's  as  if  one  need- 
ed a  colder  climate  to  brace  a  cook  to  his  business. 
The  Frenchman  and  the  Italian  trifle  and  stimulate. 
It's  as  if  they'd  never  met  a  hungry  man.  No  Ger- 
man would  have  thought  of  souffle.  Ugh !  it's  vicious 
eating.  There's  much  that's  fine,  though,  in  Austria 
and  Hungary.  I  wish  I  had  travelled  in  Hungary. 
Do  you  remember  how  once  or  twice  we've  lunched  at 
that  Viennese  place  in  Regent  Street,  and  how  they've 
given  us  stuffed  Paprika,  eh?" 

"  That  was  a  good  place.  I  remember  there  was 
stewed  beef  once  with  a  lot  of  barley — such  good 
barley !" 

"  Every  country  has  its  glories.  One  talks  of  the 
cookery  of  northern  countries  and  then  suddenly  one 
thinks  of  curry,  with  lots  of  rice." 

"And  lots  of  chicken!" 

"  And  lots  of  hot  curry  powder,  very  hot.  And 
look  at  America !  Here's  a  people  who  haven't  any  of 
them  been  out  of  Europe  for  centuries,  and  yet  they 
have  as  different  a  table  as  you  could  well  imagine 
There's  a  kind  of  fish,  planked  shad,  that  they  cook 
on  resinous  wood— rroast  it,  I  suppose.  It's  substan- 


516  MARRIAGE 

tial,  like  nothing  else  in  the  world.  And  how  good, 
too,  with  turkey  are  sweet  potatoes.  Then  they  have 
such  a  multitude  of  cereal  things;  stuff  like  their 
buckwheat  cakes,  all  swimming  in  golden  syrup.  And 
Indian  corn,  again!" 

"  Of  course,  corn  is  being  anglicized.  I've  often 
given  you  corn — latterly,  before  we  came  away." 

"  That  sort  of  separated  grain — out  of  tins. 
Like  chicken's  food!  It's  not  the  real  thing.  You 
should  eat  corn  on  the  cob — American  fashion!  It's 
fine.  I  had  it  when  I  was  in  the  States.  You  know, 
you  take  it  up  in  your  hands  by  both  ends — you've 
seen  the  cobs? — and  gnaw." 

The  craving  air  of  Labrador  at  a  temperature 
of — 20°  Fahrenheit,  and  methodically  stinted  ra- 
tions, make  great  changes  in  the  outward  qualities  of 
the  mind.  "  Fd  like  to  do  that,"  said  Marjorie. 

Her  face  flushed  a  little  at  a  guilty  thought,  her 
eyes  sparkled.  She  leant  forward  and  spoke  in  a 
confidential  undertone. 

"  I'd — rd  like  to  eat  a  mutton  chop  like  that,19 
said  Marjorie. 

§  20 

One  morning  Marjorie  broached  something  she 
had  had  on  her  mind  for  several  days. 

"  Old  man,"  she  said,  "  I  can't  stand  it  any  long- 
er. I'm  going  to  thaw  my  scissors  and  cut  your 
hair.  .  .  .  And  then  you'll  have  to  trim  that  beard  of 
yours." 

"  You'll  have  to  dig  out  that  looking-glass." 

"I  know,"  said  Marjorie.  She  looked  at  him. 
"You'll  never  be  a  pretty  man  again,"  she  said. 
"  But  there's  a  sort  of  wild  splendour.  .  .  .  And  I 
love  every  inch  and  scrap  of  you.  ,  .  ,5> 


LONELY  HUT  517 

• 

Their  eyes  met.  "  We're  a  thousand  deeps  now 
below  the  look  of  things,"  said  Trafford.  "We'd 
love  each  other  minced." 

She  broke  into  that  smiling  laugh  of  hers.  "  Oh! 
it  won't  come  to  that,"  she  said.  "  Trust  my  house- 
keeping!" 


CHAPTER  THE  FIFTH 

THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA 


ONE  astonishing  afternoon  in  January  a  man 
came  out  of  the  wilderness  to  Lonely  Hut.  He  was 
a  French-Indian  half-breed,  a  trapper  up  and  down 
the  Green  River  and  across  the  Height  of  Land  to 
Sea  Lake.  He  arrived  in  a  sort  of  shy  silence,  and 
squatted  amiably  on  a  log  to  thaw.  "  Much  snow," 
he  said,  "  and  little  fur." 

After  he  had  sat  at  their  fire  for  an  hour  and  eaten 
and  drunk,  his  purpose  in  coming  thawed  out.  He 
explained  he  had  just  come  on  to  them  to  see  how 
they  were.  He  was,  he  said,  a  planter  furring;  he 
had  a  line  of  traps,  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  miles 
in  length.  The  nearest  trap  in  his  path  before  he 
turned  northward  over  the  divide  was  a  good  forty 
miles  down  the  river.  He  had  come  on  from  there. 
Justj  to  have  a  look.  His  name,  he  said,  was  Louis 
Napoleon  Partington.  He  had  carried  a  big  pack, 
a  rifle  and  a  dead  marten, — they  lay  beside  him — 
and  out  of  his  shapeless  mass  of  caribou  skins  and 
woolen  clothing  and  wrappings,  peeped  a  genial,  oily, 
brown  face,  very  dirty,  with  a  strand  of  blue-black 
hair  across  one.  eye,  irregular  teeth,  in  its  friendly 
smile,  and  little,  squeezed-up  eyes. 

Conversation  developed.  There  had  been  doubts 
of  his  linguistic  range  at  first,  but  he  had  an  under- 
standing expression,  and  his  English  seemed  gutteral 
rather  than  really  bad. 

He  was  told  the  tremendous  story  of  Trafford's 
leg;  was  shown  it,  and  felt  it;  he  interpolated  thick 

518 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA      519 

and  whistling  noises  to  show  how  completedy  he  fol- 
lowed their  explanations,  and  then  suddenly  he  began 
a  speech  that  made  all  his  earlier  taciturnity  seem 
but  the  dam  of  a  great  reservoir  of  mixed  and  partly 
incomprehensible  English.  He  complimented  Mar- 
jorie  so  effusively  and  relentlessly  and  shamelessly  as 
to  produce  a  pause  when  he  had  done.  "  Yes,"  he 
said,  and  nodded  to  button  up  the  whole.  He  sucked 
his  pipe,  well  satisfied  with  his  eloquence.  Trafford 
spoke  in  his  silence.  "  We  are  coming  down,"  he  said. 

("I  thought,  perhaps "  whispered  Louis  Na- 

tpoleon.) 

"  Yes,"  said  Trafford,  "  we  are  coming  down  with 
you.  5Vhy  not?  We  can  get  a  sledge  over  the  snow 
now?  It's  hard?  I  mean  a  flat  sledge — like  this. 
See?  Like  this."  He  got  up  and  dragged  Marjorie's 
old  arrangement  into  view.  "  We  shall  bring  all  the 
stuff  we  can  down  with  us,  grub,  blankets — not  the 
tent,  it's  too  bulky;  we'll  leave  a  lot  of  the  heavy 
gear." 

"You'd  have  to  leave  the  tent,"  said  Louis  Na- 
poleon. 

"  I  said  leave  the  tent." 

"And  you'd  have  to  leave  ...  some  of  those 
tins." 

"  Nearly  all  of  them." 

"And  the  ammunition,  there; — except  just  a 
little." 

"  iJust  enough  for  the  journey  down." 

"Perhaps  a  gun?" 

"  No,  not  a  gun.  ThougK,  after  all, — well,  we'd 
return  one  of  the  guns.  Give  it  you  to  bring  back 
here." 

"  Bring  back  here?" 

"If  you  liked." 

For  some  moments  Louis  Napoleon  was  intently 


520  MARRIAGE 

silent.  When  he  spoke  his  voice  was  gutteral  with 
emotion.  "  After,"  he  said  thoughtfully  and  paused, 
and  then  resolved  to  have  it  over  forthwith,  "  all  you 
leave  will  be  mine?  Eh?" 

Trafford  said  that  was  the  idea. 

Louis  Napoleon's  eye  brightened,  but  his  face 
preserved  its  Indian  calm. 

"  I  will  take  you  right  to  Hammond's,"  he  said, 
"  Where  they  have  dogs.  And  then  I  can  come  back 
here.  .  .  ." 

II 

They  had  talked  out  nearly  every  particular  of 
their  return  before  they  slept  that  night ;  they  yarned 
away  three  hours  over  the  first  generous  meal  that 
any  one  of  them  had  eaten  for  many  weeks.  Louis 
Napoleon  stayed  in  the  hut  as  a  matter  of  course,  and 
reposed  with  snores  and  choking  upon  Marjorie's 
sledge  and  within  a  yard  of  her.  It  struck  her  as  she 
lay  awake  and  listened  that  the  housemaids  in  Sussex 
Square  would  have  thought  things  a  little  congested 
for  a  lady's  bedroom,  and  then  she  reflected  that  after 
all  it  wasn't  much  worse  than  a  crowded  carriage  in 
an  all-night  train  from  Switzerland.  She  tried  to 
count  how  many  people  there  had  been  in  that  com- 
partment, and]  failed.  How  stuffy  that  had  been — 
the  smell  of  cheese  and  all!  And  with  that,  after  a 
dream  that  she  was  whaling  and  had  harpooned  a 
particularly  short-winded  whale  she  fell  very  peace- 
fully into  oblivion. 

Next  day  was  spent  in  the  careful  preparation  of 
the  two  sledges.  They  intended  to  take  a  full  pro- 
vision for  six  weeks,  although  they  reckoned  that 
with  good  weather  they  ought  to  be  down  at  Ham- 
mond's in  four, 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA      521 

The  day  after  was  Sunday,  and  Louis  Napoleon 
would  not  look  at  the  sledges  or  packing.  Instead  he 
held  a  kind  of  religious  service  which  consisted  partly 
in  making  Trafford  read  aloud  out  of  a  very  oily  old 
New  Testament  he  produced,  a  selected  passage  from 
the  book  of  Corinthians,  and  partly  in  moaning 
rather  than  singing  several  hymns.  He  was  rather 
disappointed  that  they  did  not  join  in  with  him.  In 
the  afternoon  he  heated  some  water,  went  into  the 
tent  with  it  and  it  would  appear  partially  washed  his 
face.  In  the  evening,  after  they  had  supped,  he  dis- 
cussed religion,  being  curious  by  this  time  about  their 
beliefs  and  procedure. 

He  spread  his  mental  and  spiritual  equipment 
before  them  very  artlessly.  Their  isolation  and  their 
immense  concentration  on  each  other  had  made  them 
sensitive  to  personal  quality,  and  they  listened  to  the 
broken  English  and  the  queer  tangential  starts  into 
new  topics  of  this  dirty  mongrel  creature  with  the 
keenest  appreciation  of  its  quality.  It  was  inconsis- 
tent, miscellaneous,  simple,  honest,  and  human.  It 
was  as  touching  as  the  medley  in  the  pocket  of  a  dead 
schoolboy.  He  was  superstitious  and  sceptical  and 
sensual  and  spiritual,  and  very,  very  earnest.  The 
things  he  believed,  even  if  they  were  just  beliefs 
about  the  weather  or  drying  venison  or  filling  pipes, 
he  believed  with  emotion.  He  flushed  as  he  told  them. 
For  all  his  intellectual  muddle  they  felt  he  knew  how 
to  live  honestly  and  die  if  need  be  very  finely. 

He  was  more  than  a  little  distressed  at  their  ap- 
parent ignorance  of  the  truths  of  revealed  religion 
as  it  is  taught  in  the  Moravian  schools  upon  the  coast, 
and  indeed  it  was  manifest  that  he  had  had  far  more 
careful  and  infinitely  more  sincere  religious  teaching 
than  either  Trafford  or  Marjorie.  For  a  time  the 
missionary  spirit  inspired  him,  and  then  he  quite  for- 


522  MARRIAGE 

got  his  solicitude  for  their  conversion  in  a  number 
of  increasingly  tall  anecdotes  about  hunters  and  fish- 
ermen, illustrating  at  first  the  extreme  dangers  of  any 
departure  from  a  rigid  Sabbatarianism,  but  presently 
becoming  just  stories  illustrating  the  uncertainty  of 
life.  Thence  he  branched  off  to  the  general  topic  of 
life  upon  the  coast  and  the  relative  advantages  of 
"planter"  and  fisherman. 

And  then  with  a  kindling  eye  he  spoke  of  women, 
and  how  that  some  day  he  would  marry.  His  voice 
softened,  and  he  addressed  himself  more  particularly 
to  Marjorie.  He  didn't  so  much  introduce  the  topic 
of  the  lady  as  allow  the  destined  young  woman  sud- 
denly to  pervade  his  discourse.  She  was,  it  seemed, 
a  servant,  an  Esquimaux  girl  at  the  Moravian  Mission 
station  at  Manivikovik.  He  had  been  plighted  to  her 
for  nine  years.  He  described  a  gramophone  he  had 
purchased  down  at  Port  Dupre  and  brought  back  to 
her  three  hundred  miles  up  the  coast — it  seemed  to 
Marjorie  an  odd  gift  for  an  Esquimaux  maiden — 
and  he  gave  his  views  upon  its  mechanism.  He  said 
God  was  with  the  man  who  invented  the  gramophone 
"  truly."  They  would  have  found  one  a  very  great 
relief  to  the  tediums  of  their  sojourn  at  Lonely  Hut. 
The  gramophone  he  had  given  his  betrothed'  pos- 
sessed records  of  the  Rev.  Capel  Gumm's  preaching 
and  of  Madame  Melba's  singing,  a  revival  hymn  call- 
ed "Sowing  the  Seed,"  and  a  comic  song — they  could 
not  make  out  his  pronunciation  of  the  title — that 
made  you  die  with  laughter.  "  It  goes  gobble,  gobble, 
gobble,"  he  said,  with  a  solemn  appreciative  reflec- 
tion of  those  distant  joys. 

"  It's  good  to  be  jolly  at  times,"  he  said  with  his 
bright  eyes  scanning  Marjorie's  face  a  little  doubt- 
fully, as  if  such  ideas  were  better  left  for  week-day 
expression. 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA       523 
§* 

Their  return  was  a  very  different  journey  from  the 
toilsome  ascent  of  the  summer.  An  immense  abund- 
ance of  snow  masked  the  world,  snow  that  made  them 
regret  acutely  they  had  not  equipped  themselves  with 
ski.  With  ski  and  a  good  circulation,  a  man  may  go 
about  Labrador  in  winter,  six  times  more  easily  than 
by  the  canoes  and  slow  trudging  of  summer  travel. 
As  it  was  they  were  glad  of  their  Canadian  snow 
shoes.  One  needs  only  shelters  after  the  Alpine  Club 
hut  fashion,  and  all  that  vast  solitary  country  would 
be  open  in  the  wintertime.  Its  shortest  day  is  no 
shorter  than  the  shortest  day  in  Cumberland  or  Dub- 
lin. 

This  is  no  place  to  tell  of  the  beauty  and  wonder 
of  snow-  and  ice,  the  soft  contours  of  gentle  slopes, 
the  rippling  of  fine  snow  under  a  steady  wind,  the 
long  shadow  ridges  of  shining  powder  on  the  lee  of 
trees  and  stones  and  rocks,  the  delicate  wind  streaks 
over  broad  surfaces  like  the  marks  of  a  chisel  in  mar- 
ble, the  crests  and  cornices,  the  vivid  brightness  of 
edges  in  the  sun,  the  glowing  yellowish  light  on  sun- 
lit surfaces,  the  long  blue  shadows,  the  flush  of  sunset 
and  sunrise  and  the  pallid  unearthly  desolation  of 
snow  beneath  the  moon.  Nor  need  the  broken  snow  in 
woods  and  amidst  tumbled  stony  slopes  be  described, 
nor  the  vast  soft  overhanging  crests  on  every  out- 
standing rock  beside  the  icebound  river,  nor  the  huge 
stalactites  and  stalagmites  of  green-blue  ice  below  the 
cliffs,  nor  trees  burdened  and  broken  by  frost  and 
snow,  nor  snow  upon  ice,  nor  the  blue  pools  at  midday 
upon  the  surface  of  the  ice-stream.  Across  the  smooth. 
wind-swept  ice  of  the  open  tarns  they  would  find  a. 
growth  of  ice  flowers,  six-rayed  and  complicated, 


524  MARRIAGE 

more  abundant  and  more  beautiful  than  the  Alpine 
summer  flowers. 

But  the  wind  was  very  bitter,  and  the  sun  had 
scarcely  passed  its  zenith  before  the  thought  of  fuel 
and  shelter  came  back  into  their  minds. 

As  they  approached  Partington's  tilt,  at  the  point 
where  his  trapping  ground  turned  out  of  the  Green 
River  gorge,  he  became  greatly  obsessed  by  the 
thought  of  his  traps.  He  began  to  talk  of  all  that  he 
might  find  in  them,  all  he  hoped  to  find,  and  the 
"  dallars"  that  might  ensue.  They  slept  the  third 
night,  Marjorie  within  and  the  two  men  under  the 
lee  of  the  little  cabin,  and  Partington  was  up  and 
away  before  dawn  to  a  trap  towards  the  ridge.  He 
had'  infected  Marjorie  and  Trafford  with  a  sympa«- 
thetic  keenness,  but  when  they  saw  his  killing  of  a 
marten  that  was  still  alive  in  its  trap,  they  suddenly 
conceived  a  distaste  for  trapping. 

They  insisted  they  must  witness  no  more.  They 
would  wait  while  he  went  to  a  trap.  .  .  . 

"  Think  what  he's  doing!"  said  Trafford,  as  they 
sat  together  under  the  lee  of  a  rock  waiting  for  him. 
"  We  imagined  this  was  a  free,  simple-souled1  man 
leading  an  unsophisticated  life  on  the  very  edge  of 
humanity,'  and  really  he  is  as  much  a  dependant  of 
your  woman's  world,  Marjorie,  as  any  sweated  seam- 
stress in  a  Marylebone  slum.  Lord!  how  far  those 
pretty  wasteful  hands  of  women  reach!  All  these 
poor  broken  and  starving  beasts  he  finds  and  slaugh- 
ers  are,  from  the  point  of  view  of  our  world,  just  furs. 
Furs !  Poor  little  snarling  unfortunates !  Their  pelts 
will  be  dressed  and  prepared  because  women  who  have 
never  dreamt  of  this  bleak  wilderness  desire  them. 
They  will  get  at  last  into  Regent  Street  shops,  and 
Bond  Street  shops,  and  shops  in  Fifth  Avenue  and  in 
Paris  and  Berlin,  they  will  make  delightful  deep  muffs, 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA      525 

with  scent  and  little  bags  and  powder  puffs  and  all 
sorts  of  things  tucked  away  inside,  and  long  wraps  for 
tall  women,  and  jolly  little  frames  of  soft  fur  for 
pretty  faces,  and  dainty  coats  and  rugs  for  expensive 
little  babies  in  Kensington  Gardens."  .  .  . 

"  I  wonder,"  reflected  Marjorie,  "  if  I  could  buy 
one  perhaps.  As  a  memento." 

He  looked  at  her  with  eyes  of  quiet  amusement. 

"Oh!"  she  cried,  "I  didn't  mean  to!  The  old 
Eve!" 

"The  old  Adam  is  with  her,"  said  Trafford. 
"  He's  wanting  to  give  it  her.  .  .  .  We  don't  cease 
to  be  human,  Madge,  you  know,  because  we've  got  an 
idea  now  of  just  where  we  are.  I  wonder,  which 
would  you  like?  I  dare  say  we  could  arrange  it." 

"  No,"  said  Marjorie,  and  thought.  "  It  would 
be  jolly,"  she  said.  "All  the  same,  you  know — and 
just  to  show  you — I'm  not  going  to  let  you  buy  me 
that  fur." 

"  I'd  like  to,"  said  Trafford. 

"  No,"  said  Marjorie,  with  a  decision  that  was 
almost  fierce.  "  I  mean  it.  I've  got  more  to  do  than 
you  in  the  way  of  reforming.  It's  just  because  al- 
ways I've  let  my  life  be  made  up  of  such  little  things 
that  I  mustn't.  Indeed  I  mustn't.  Don't  make  things 
hard  for  me." 

He  looked  at  her  for  a  moment.  "  Very  well,"  he 
said.  "  But  I'd  have  liked  to."  .  .  . 

"  You're  right,"  he  added,  five  seconds  later. 

"Oh!  I'm  right." 

I  4 

One  day  Louis  Napoleon  sent  them  on  along  the 
trail  while  he  went  up  the  mountain  to  a  trap  among 
the  trees.  He  rejoined  them — not  as  his  custom  was2 


526  MARRIAGE 

sKouting  inaudible  conversation  for  the  last  hundred 
yards  or  so,  but  in  silence.  They  wondered  at  that, 
and  at  the  one  clumsy  gesture  that  flourished  some- 
thing darkly  grey  at  them.  What  had  happened  to 
the  man?  Whatever  he  had  caught  he  was  hugging 
it  as  one  hugs  a  cat,  and  stroking  it.  "  Ugh !"  he 
said  deeply,  drawing  near.  "Oh!"  A  solemn  joy 
irradiated  his  face,  and  almost  religious  ecstasy  found! 
expression. 

He  had  got  a  silver  fox,  a  beautifully  marked  sil- 
ver fox,  the  best  luck  of  Labrador !  One  goes  for  years 
without  one,  in  hope,  and  when  it  comes,  it  pays  the 
trapper's  debts,  it  clears  his  life — for  years ! 

They  tried  poor  inadequate  congratulation  .... 

As  they  sat  about  the  fire  that  night  a  silence 
came  upon  Louis  Napoleon.  It  was  manifest  that  his 
mind  was  preoccupied.  He  got  up,  walked  about, 
inspected  the  miracle  of  fur  that  had  happened  to 
him,  returned1,  regarded  them.  "  M'm,"  he  said,  and 
stroked  his  chin  with  his  forefinger.  A  certain  diffi- 
dence and  yet  a  certain  dignity  of  assurance  mingled 
in  his  manner.  It  wasn't  so  much  a  doubt  of  his  own 
correctness  as  of  some  possible  ignorance  of  the  finer 
shades  on  their  part  that  might  embarrass  him.  He 
coughed  a  curt  preface,  and  intimated  he  had  a  re- 
quest to  make.  Behind  the  Indian  calm  of  his  face 
glowed  tremendous  feeling,  like  the  light  of  a  foundry 
furnace  shining  through  chinks  in  the  door.  He  spoke 
in  a  small  flat  voice,  exercising  great  self-control. 
His  wish,  he  said,  in  view  of  all  that  had  happened, 
was  a  little  thing.  .  .  .  This  was  nearly  a  perfect  day 
for  him,  and  one  thing  only  remained.  ..."  Well," 
he  said,  and  hung.  "Well,"  said  Trafford.  He 
plunged.  Just  simply  this.  {Would  they  give  him 
the  brandy  bottle  and  let  him  get  d'runk?  Mr.  Gren- 
fell  was  a  good  man,  a  very  good  man,  but  he  had 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA     527, 

made  brandy  dear — dear  beyond  the  reach  of  com- 
mon men  altogether — along  the  coast.  .  .  . 

He  explained,  dear  bundle  of  clothes  and  dirt! 
that  he  was  always  perfectly  respectable  when  he  was 
drunk. 

§« 

It  seemed!  strange  to  Trafford  that  now  that  Mar- 
jorie  was  going  home,  a  wild  impatience  to  see  her 
children  should  possess  her.  So  long  as  it  had  been 
probable  that  they;  would  stay  out  their  year  in  La- 
brador, that  separation,  had  seemed  mainly  a  senti- 
mental trouble;  now  at  times  it  was  like  an  animal 
craving.  She  would  talk  of  them  for  hours  at  a 
stretch,  and  when  she  was  not  talking  he  could  see 
her  eyes  fixed  ahead,  and  knew  that  she  was  antici- 
pating a  meeting.  And  for  the  first  time  it  seemed 
the  idea  of  possible  misadventure  troubled  her.  .  .  . 

They  reached  Hammond's  in  one  and  twenty  days 
from  Lonely  Hut,  three  days  they  had  been  forced  to 
camp  because  of  a  blizzard,  and  three  because  Louis 
Napoleon  was  rigidly  Sabbatarian.  They  parted 
from  him  reluctantly,  and  the  next  day  Hammond's 
produced  its  dogs,  twelve  stout  but  extremely  hungry 
dogs,  and  sent  the  Traffords  on  to  the  Green  River 
pulp-mills,  where  there  were  good  beds  and  a  copious 
supply  of  hot  water.  Thence  they  went  to  Maniviko- 
vik,  and  thence  the  new  Marconi  station  sent  their 
inquiries  home,  inquiries  that  were  answered  next  day 
with  matter-of-fact  brevity:  "Everyone  well,  love 
from  all." 

When  the  operator  hurried  with  that  to  Marjorie 
she  received  it  off-handedly,  glanced1  at  it  carelessly, 
asked  him  to  smoke,  remarked  that  wireless  tele- 
graphy was  a  wonderful  thing,  and  then,  in  the  midst 


528  MARRIAGE 

of  some  unfinished  commonplace  about  the  tempera- 
ture, broke  down  and  wept  wildly  and  uncontroll- 
ably. .  .  . 

S  6 

Then  came  the  long,  wonderful  ride  southward 
day  after  day  along  the  coast  to  Port  Dupre,  a  ride 
from  headland  to  headland  across  the  frozen  bays  be- 
hind long  teams  of  straining,  furry  dogs,  that  leapt 
and  yelped  as  they  ran.  Sometimes  over  the  land  the 
brutes  shirked  and  loitered  and  called  for  the  whip ; 
they  were  a  quarrelsome  crew  to  keep  waiting;  but 
across  the  sea-ice  they  went  like  the  wind,  and  down- 
hill the  komatic  chased  their  waving  tails.  The 
sledges  swayed  and  leapt  depressions,  and  shot  ath- 
wart icy  stretches.  The  Traffords,  spectacled  and 
wrapped  to  their  noses,  had  all  the  sensations  then  of 
hunting  an  unknown  quarry  behind  a  pack  of  wolves. 
The  snow  blazed  under  the  sun,  out  to  sea  beyond  the 
ice  the  water  glittered,  and  it  wasn't  so  much  air  they 
breathed  as  a  sort  of  joyous  hunger. 

One  day  their  teams  insisted  upon  racing. 

Marjorie's  team  was  the  heavier,  her  driver  more 
skillful,  and  her  sledge  the  lighter,  and  she  led  in 
that  wild  chase  from  start  to  finish,  but  ever  and 
again  Traff ord  made  wild  spurts  that  brought  him  al- 
most level.  Once,  as  he  came  alongside,  she  heard 
him  laughing  joyously. 

"  Marjorie,"  he  shouted,  "  d'you  remember?  Old 
donkey  cart?" 

Her  team  yawed  away,  and  as  he  swept  near 
again,  behind  his  pack  of  whimpering,  straining,  furi- 
ous dogs,  she  heard  him  shouting,  "  You  know,  that 
old  cart !  Under  the  overhanging  trees !  So  thick  and 
green  they  met  overhead !  You  know !  When  you  and 


THE  TRAIL  TO  THE  SEA      529 

I  had  our  first  talk  together !    In  the  lane.    It  wasn't 
so  fast  as  this,  eh?"  .   .  . 

§7 

At  Port  Dupre  they  stayed  ten  days — days  that 
Marjorie  could  only  make  tolerable  by  knitting  ab- 
surd garments  for  the  children  (her  knitting  was 
atrocious),  and  then  one  afternoon  they  heard  the 
gun  of  the  Grenfell,  the  new  winter  steamer  from  St. 
John's,  signalling  as  it  came  in  through  the  fog,  very 
slowly,  from  that  great  wasteful  world  of  men  and 
women  beyond  the  seaward  grey. 


THE  END 


LOAN  OEPT 


.     .-if 


